THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 

Professor 
Dimitry  M*  Krassovsky 


gaul.*  '  Wr- 


The  Life  of 
Francis  Thompson 


frcinci.'j  .J 'hrm/j.ic n 
in 


The  Life  of 
Francis  Thompson 


By  Everard  Meynell 


New  York 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons 

597-599   Fifth  Avenue 
IQI3 


Printed  in  England 


PR, 


To 
Grazia 


The  Author's  thanks  are  here  tendered  to  Mother  Austin  of  the 
Presentation  Convent,  Manchester,  the  Poet's  sister ;  to  Perceval 
Lucas  and  Father  Austin  Richmond  for  the  fruits  of  research 
work ;  to  Mrs.  Coventry  Patmore  and  Lewis  Hind  for  letters 
and  memories  ;  and  to  many  other  kind  helpers. 


Contents 


IhapUr 
I. 

The  Child 

Page 
I 

II. 

The  Boy        

15 

III. 

Manchester  and  Medicine    . 

35 

IV. 

London  Streets     ..... 

61 

V. 

The  Discovery      ..... 

85 

VI. 

Literary  Beginnings      .... 

in 

VII. 

"Poems" 

i35 

VIII. 

Of  Words  ;  of  Origins  ;  of  Metre 

152 

IX. 

At  Monastery  Gates     . 

180 

X. 

Mysticism  and  Imagination 

198 

XI. 

Patmore's  Death,  and  "  New  Poems " 

233 

XII. 

Friends  and  Opinions .... 

245 

XIII. 

The  Londoner      ..... 

272 

XIV. 

Communion  and  Excommunion  . 

291 

XV. 

Characteristics        . 

•     308 

XVI. 

The  Closing  Years       .... 

316 

XVII. 

Last  Things.         ..... 

339 

Index 


353 


IX 


Illustrations 


Francis  Thompson  in  1895 

His  Birthplace  . 

Francis,  his  Sisters  and  their  Dolls,  1870 

St.  Cuthbert's  College,  Ushaw 

Francis  Thompson  in  1875 

Francis  Thompson  in  1877 

No.  47  Palace  Court 

Cast  of  the  Poet's  Hand   . 

His  Parents 

"  Mr.  Thompson  of  Fleet  Street  " 

(Drawn  by  Everard  Meynell,  1903) 

The  Life  Mask,  1905 
Francis  Thompson  in  1907 

(Drawn  by  (he  Hon.  Neville  Lytton) 

The  Memorial  at  Owens  College 


Frontispiece 
Facing  page     4 


„  12 

„  26 

»  34 

»  54 

»  134 

»  x44 

;,  186 

»  256 

»  3l6 

n  328 


}) 


344 


The  Life  of  Francis  Thompson 


CHAPTER   I:   THE   CHILD 

"I  WAS  born  in  1858  or  1859  (I  never  could  remember 
and  don't  care  which)  at  Preston  in  Lancashire.  Re- 
siding there,  my  mother  more  than  once  pointed  out 
to  me,  as  we  passed  it,  the  house  wherein  I  was  born  ; 
and  it  seemed  to  me  disappointingly  like  any  other 
house." 

The  16th  of  December  1859  was  the  day,  7  Winckley 
Street,  a  box  of  a  house  in  a  narrow  road,  the  place 
of  Francis  Joseph  Thompson's  birth.  He  was  the  second 
son  of  Charles  Thompson  and  his  wife,  Mary  Turner 
Morton.1  Charles  Thompson's  father  (the  poet's  grand- 
father) was  Robert  Thompson,  Surveyor  of  Taxes  suc- 
cessively at  Oakham  in  Rutlandshire,  Bath,  and  Salisbury ; 
he  married  Mary  Costall,  the  daughter  of  a  surgeon, 
at  Oakham  in  1812,  and  died  at  Tunbridge  Wells  in 
1853.     Charles,  born  in  1823,  married  Mary  Morton  in 

1857- 

Having  first  practised  at  Bristol  and  later  been  house- 
surgeon  in  the  Homeopathic  Dispensary  in  Manchester, 
he  set  up  a  practice  in  Winckley  Street  shortly  after 
his  marriage.  Like  his  wife,  his  sisters,  and  the  majority 
of  his  brothers,  Dr.  Thompson  was  a  convert  to  the 
Catholic   Church ;    but,    unlike  his   brothers,   he   never 

1  Their  first  child,  a  son,  lived  only  one  day,  and  of  the  three  daughters 
whose  births  followed  Francis's,  one,  Helen,  died  in  infancy.  Of  the  other 
two,  the  elder,  Mary,  is  a  nun  in  Manchester,  the  other,  Margaret  Richardson, 
wife  and  mother  in  Canada. 


The  Child 

committed  himself  to  authorship,  and  is  remembered 
only  in  the  many  good  opinions  of  those  who  knew 
him.  For  his  patients  he  had  something  of  the  pastoral 
feeling  ;  his  rounds  were  his  diocese,  and  in  the  statistics 
of  kindness  which  no  man  keeps — in  deference  perhaps 
to  the  thoroughness  of  the  Recording  Angel — his  name 
is  thought  worthy  to  figure  largely.  Though  he  attended 
as  many  patients  as  the  most  successful  members  of  his 
profession,  his  fees  were  smaller  and  fewer.  He  stood, 
like  his  clients  of  the  poorer  quarters,  in  fear  of  the 
Creator  firstly,  and  of  death  secondly  ;  and  so  it  happened 
that,  having  ministered  to  mother  and  child,  he  would 
pour  out  the  waters  of  baptism  over  infants  who  made 
as  if  to  leave  the  world  as  soon  as  they  had  entered  it. 
This  much  of  his  kindness  will  serve  as  a  preface  to  the 
story  of  the  part  which,  forced  to  a  seeming  severity, 
he  played  in  the  career  of  his  son. 

The  verses  of  two  of  Charles  Thompson's  brothers 
(Francis's  uncles  *)  supply  no  clue,  not  even  a  plebeian 
one,  to  the  origin  of  Francis's  muse.  Edward  Healy 
Thompson's  sonnets  and  John  Costall  Thompson's  Vision 
of  Liberty  show  that  not  a  dozen  such  rhyming  uncles 
could  endow  a  birth  with  poetry.  Eugenists  must 
accept  an  inexplicable  hitch  in  the  prosaic  unfolding 
of  the  Thompson  birth-roll.  While  there  can  be  no 
chart  made  of  Francis's  intellectual  lineage,  it  is  not 
surprising  that  an  occasional  phrase  in  his  uncle's 
Vision  of  Liberty  and  other  Poems,  privately  printed 
in  1848,  bears  some  resemblance  to  his  form  and  diction. 

1  Edward  Healy  Thompson  married  Harriet  Diana,  daughter  of  Nicolson 
Calvert,  sometime  M.P.  for  Hertford,  by  Frances,  co-heir  of  the  1st  and  last 
Viscount  Pery.  Another  uncle  of  the  poet  was  the  Rev.  Henry  Thompson, 
who  was  educated  at  Magdalen  Hall,  Oxford  ;  took  clerical  duty  at  Kirk 
Hammerton  and  at  Greatham  (Hants);  published  a  sermon  (1850)  entitled 
The  New  Birth  by  Water  and  the  Spirit ;  married  Julia,  daughter  of  Sir 
William  Yea,  Bart.  A  daughter  by  this  union,  Charlotte  Anne  Hechstetter 
Yea  Thompson,  married  (1869)  Ralph  Abercrombie  Cameron,  elder  son  of  the 
Rev.  Alexander  Cameron  by  Charlotte,  daughter  of  the  Hon.  Edward  Rice, 
D.D.,  Dean  of  Gloucester.  A  fourth  uncle  of  the  poet,  James  Thompson, 
lost  his  life  in  South  Africa. 


The  Writing   Uncles 

A  servant-maid  destroyed  John's  autobiography — an 
unkind  accident,  since  it  left  his  career  to  be  summed  up 
by  a  relative  in  seven  words  :  "  An  utter  failure  in  life 
and  literature."  Gladstone  and  Sir  Henry  Taylor  at 
one  time  interested  themselves  in  his  work,  but  neither 
so  keenly  nor  so  persistently  as  to  secure  his  good  fame 
with  an  exacting  brother.  Yet  Edward  Healy  Thompson 
(born  1813,  educated  at  Oakham  and  Emmanuel  College, 
Cambridge)  is  duller  in  verse  than  John  Costall.  He 
never  saw,  or  never  used,  even  a  second-rate  vision. 
Before  his  conversion  to  Catholicism  he  was  curate 
in  the  parish  of  Elia's  "  Sweet  Calne  in  Wiltshire  "  from 
July  1838  to  January  1840,  and  had  for  neighbour  there 
the  friend  of  Lamb  and  Wordsworth,  to  whom  Cole- 
ridge, before  a  meeting,  had  written — 

My  heart  has  thanked  thee,  Bowles,  for  those  soft  strains 
Whose  sadness  soothes  the  life  with  murmuring 
Of  wild  bees  in  the  sunny  showers  of  Spring. 

But  sweet  Calne  had  its  harsher  properties :  its  human 
bees  murmured  in  wrath,  and  had  stings.  Incumbent 
and  curate  both  held  a  poet  in  disrespect.  Coleridge  and 
Francis  Thompson,  in  whom  may  be  traced  in  common 
the  spoliations  of  opium,  are  linked  by  the  coincidence 
that  they  were  condemned  by  those  Wiltshire  associates 
— Coleridge  by  the  rector  in  terms  of  high  contempt, 
and  Francis  by  the  curate,  who  wrote  in  later  days 
to  warn  Francis's  London  friends  that  he  must  be 
avoided  as  the  writer  of  "erotic  verse."  Edward  Healy 
Thompson  afterwards  admitted  Francis's  genius,  but 
found  no  hereditary  explanation  of  it  in  Francis's  parents 
or  any  member  of  the  family.  On  the  other  hand, 
Miss  Agnes  Martin,  a  cousin  of  Francis,  writes  :  "  From 
his  father  he  inherited  his  passion  for  religion,  and,  from 
what  I  know  of  his  poetry,  I  find  he  has  expressed 
thoughts  and  yearnings  habitual  to  other  members  of 
his  father's  family."     It  was  Francis's  custom  to  speak 

3 


The  Child 

of  his  mother  as  if  it  were  from  her  at  least  as  much  as 
from   his    father   that   he   derived    certain   mental   and 
physical  characteristics.     Born  in  Manchester  in  1822, 
she  was  daughter  of  Joseph  Morton  and  Harriet  Sigley. 
Her  father,  a  clerk  in  the  bank  of  Messrs.  Jones,  Lloyd 
and  Co.,  was  afterwards  secretary  to  the  newly-founded 
Manchester  Assurance  Co.,  and  later  lost  money  in  a 
personal  business  enterprise.     In   1851   her  family  left 
Manchester   for   Chelsea,  and   there   in    1854   she   was 
living  with  people  who  befriended  her  desire,  frowned 
upon   by   her   family,    of   becoming   a    Catholic.      She 
became  engaged  to  the  son  of  the  house,  but  he  died, 
and  before  the  close  of  the  year  she  was  received  into 
the  Church.     In  how  far  she  was  cast  out  by  her  own 
people    I    do   not   know,   but  to   some   degree   she   re- 
hearsed the  part  to  be  played,  after  her  death,  in  her 
own  household  by  her  own  son.     She  set  out  to  make 
a  living,  and  took  a  position  as  governess  at  Sale,  near 
Manchester,  having  failed — as  he  failed  in  his   Ushaw 
days — in  an  attempt  to  enter  the  Religious  Life.1     In 
the    following   year,   while   still   in   the    neighbourhood 
of  Manchester,  she  met  her  future  husband.     She  died 
December  19,  1880,  at  Stamford  Street,  Ashton-under- 
Lyne.      Dr.   Thompson    married    as    his    second    wife 
Anne  Richardson,  in  1887. 

The  paternal  relative  (a  cousin  once  removed)  who 
finds  in  Francis  thoughts  and  yearnings  habitual  to  other 
members  of  his  father's  family,  is  better  able  to  note 
them  than  he  was.  She  tracks  them  in  a  girl  (never 
seen  by  Francis)  whose  tragedy,  since  seeking  admit- 
tance to  a  convent  and  failing  to  take  final  vows,  is 
that  she  is  not  physically  fit  for  the  only  life  tolerable 
to  her.  She  recognises  the  family  mannerism  in  a  relative 
who  is  famous  in  the  suburban  street  of  his  choice  for 
reciting  the  Psalms  in  a  mighty  voice  in  his  sleep,  so 
that  no  rest  visits  the  guest  new  to  the  household  noises. 

1  At  the  Convent  of  the  Holy  Child,  St.  Leonard's-on-Sea. 

4 


■I 


MMMOIHMMH 


•apnwiwrik'wvtw 


The  Poet's  Birthplace 

No.  7,  Winckley  Street,  Preston 


Family  Likenesses 

She  sees  the  family  characters  in  Francis's  niece  who 
is  about  to  end  her  noviciate  and  take  vows  in  a 
Canadian  community.  She  notes  them  in  the  two  aunts, 
the  sisters  of  Charles  Thompson,  who  as  Sister  Mary 
of  St.  Jane  Frances  de  Chantal  of  the  Order  of  the  Good 
Shepherd,  and  Sister  Mary  Ignatius  of  the  Order  of 
Mercy,  lived  and  died  as  nuns  ;  of  a  third  aunt  nothing 
is  known,  but  in  a  dozen  other  cases  the  inclination 
for  a  spiritual  life  or  a  disinclination  for  all  the  pleasures 
or  successes  of  any  other  is  apparent.  She  notes  the 
same  carelessness  for  worldly  prosperity,  the  thought- 
lessness for  mundane  concerns  that  goes  with  certain 
trains  of  spiritual  speculation.  In  a  family  singularly 
scattered  the  family  trait  is  for  ever  reappearing.  The 
aloofness  or  vagueness  that  led  Francis  to  lose  himself 
in  London  was  responsible  for  many  lost  addresses. 
As  Francis  wandered  alone  in  the  Strand,  without  know- 
ing that  he  had  relatives  in  Church  Court  within  a 
stone's  throw  of  his  stony  and  uncovered  bed,  so  do 
the  brothers  and  sisters  of  the  present  generation  in- 
habit London  and  its  suburbs  unknown  to  one  another, 
but  without  real  alienation  or  unkindness.  She,  the 
cousin  here  cited,  has  herself  wished  to  enter  a  convent 
and  failed,  and  knowing  much  of  the  family  needs 
and  inclinations,  does  not  doubt  that  Francis's  life-long 
trouble  was  that  he  failed  in  the  attempt  to  be  a  priest. 
There  is  nothing  to  throw  substantial  discredit  on  such 
a  reading  of  his  career. 

From  Winckley  Street,  associated  with  none  of 
Francis's  conscious  experiences  of  existence,  the  family 
moved  to  Winckley  Square  and  to  Lathom  Street, 
Preston,  and  in  1864  to  Ashton-under-Lyne,  where  they 
remained  until  Francis's  flight  to  London  twenty-one 
years  later. 

"  Know  you  what  it  is  to  be  a  child  ?  "  asks  Thompson 
in  his  essay  on  Shelley ;  the  answer  tells  us  what  it  was 

5 


The  Child 

to  be  the  child  Francis  :  "  It  is  to  have  a  spirit  yet  stream- 
ing from  the  waters  of  baptism ;  it  is  to  believe  in  love, 
to  believe  in  loveliness,  to  believe  in  belief ;  it  is  to  be  so 
little  that  the  elves  can  reach  to  whisper  in  your  ear ; 
it  is  to  turn  pumpkins  into  coaches,  and  mice  into 
horses,  lowness  into  loftiness,  and  nothing  into  every- 
thing, for  each  child  has  its  fairy  godmother  in  its  own 
soul ;  it  is  to  live  in  a  nutshell  and  to  count  yourself  the 
king  of  infinite  space  ;  it  is 

To  see  a  world  in  a  grain  of  sand, 

And  a  heaven  in  a  wild  flower, 
Hold  infinity  in  the  palm  of  your  hand, 

And  eternity  in  an  hour ; 

it  is  to  know  not  as  yet  that  you  are  under  sentence  of 
life,  nor  petition  that  it  be  commuted  into  death.  When 
we  become  conscious  in  dreaming  that  we  dream,  the 
dream  is  on  the  point  of  breaking  ;  when  we  become 
conscious  in  living  that  we  live,  the  ill  dream  is  but  just 
beginning."  Francis  was  early  alive.  In  a  note-book 
he  says  :  "  Yes,  childhood  is  tragic  to  me.  And  then 
critics  complain  that  I  do  not  write  'simply'  about  it. 
O  fools  !  as  if  there  was  anything  more  complex,  held 
closer  to  the  heart  of  mystery,  than  its  contemplation." 
He  forgot  perhaps  that  even  fools  have  experienced  the 
dereliction  and  despair  which  catches  at  all  children  at 
some  time  or  another.  It  is  improbable  that  he  suffered, 
but  possible  that  he  remembered,  more  than  other 
children. 

Having  attended  for  two  months  the  school  of  the  Nuns 
of  the  Cross  and  the  Passion — a  name  full  of  anticipa- 
tions— he  reached,  in  the  cold  phrase  that  admits  to  first 
Confession  and  Communion,  the  "  age  of  discretion." 
At  seven  years  he  was  reading  poetry,  and,  overwhelmed 
by  feelings  of  which  he  knew  not  the  meaning,  had 
found  his  way  to  the  heart  of  Shakespeare  and  Cole- 
ridge :    their   three   ages   of   discretion   kept   company. 

6 


He  reaches  the  Age  of  Discretion 

Already  seeking  the  highway  and  the  highway's  seclusion, 
he  would  carry  his  book  to  the  stairs,  where,  away  from 
the  constraint  of  chairs  and  tables  and  the  unemotional 
flatness  of  the  floor,  his  sister  Mary  remembers  him. 
It  is  on  that  household  highway,  where  the  voices  and 
noises  of  the  house,  and  the  footsteps  of  passengers  on 
the  pavement  beyond  the  dark  front  door,  come  and 
pass  quickly  into  other  regions,  that  the  child  meditates 
and  learns.  There  he  may  contract  the  habit  of  loneli- 
ness, populate  his  fancy  with  the  creatures  of  fear  ;  and 
gather  about  him  a  company  of  thoughts  that  will  be 
his  intimates  until  the  end.  And  all  the  thronging 
personages  of  the  boy's  imagination  are  perhaps  darkly 
arrayed  against  him.  The  crowd  will  be  of  tremors 
rather  than  of  smiles,  of  secret  rather  than  open-handed 
truths ;  the  lessons  learnt  in  that  steep  college  of  child- 
hood are  not  joyful.  The  "  long  tragedy  of  early  ex- 
periences "  of  which  he  spoke  was  a  tragedy  adventured 
upon  alone.  With  his  mother  and  his  sisters,  their  toys, 
his  books,  and  his  own  inventions  he  was  happy.  He 
would  give  entertainments  to  a  more  or  less  patient  and 
tolerant  audience  of  sisters  ;  conjuror's  tricks,  and  a  model 
theatre  on  whose  stage  he  would  dangle  marionettes, 
were  the  favourite  performances,  to  one  of  which  he  was 
beholden  for  amusement  and  occupation  till  the  end  of 
his  life.  His  early  experience  of  the  tragedy  cannot  be 
traced  to  the  nursery.  It  was  not  there  he  built  his 
barricade,  or  became  in  his  own  words  "expert  in  con- 
cealment, not  expression,  of  myself.  Expression  I 
reserved  for  my  pen.  My  tongue  was  tenaciously  disci- 
plined in  silence."  There  befell  some  share  of  accidental 
alarm.  In  a  note-book  that  he  had  by  him  towards 
the  end  of  his  life  and  in  which  there  are  many  allu- 
sions to  its  beginnings,  he  wrote  of  the  "  world-wide 
desolation  and  terror  of  for  the  first  time,  realising  that 
the  mother  can  lose  you,  or  you  her,  and  your  own 
abysmal  loneliness  and  helplessness  without  her."     Such 

7 


The  Child 

a  feeling  he  compares  to  that  of  first  fearing  yourself 
to  be  without  God. 

His  toys  he  never  quite  relinquished  ;  among  the  few 
possessions  at  his  death  was  a  cardboard  theatre, 
wonderfully  contrived,  seeing  that  his  fingers  never  learnt 
the  ordinary  tricks  of  usefulness,  and  with  this  his  play 
was  very  earnest,  as  is  attested  in  a  note-book  query — 
"  Sylvia's  hairs  shall  work  the  figures  (?)."  That  he  was 
content  with  his  childhood,  its  toys,  and  even  its  troubles, 
he  has  particularly  asserted.  "  I  did  not  want  responsi- 
bility, did  not  want  to  be  a  man.  Toys  I  could  surrender, 
with  chagrin,  so  I  had  my  great  toy  of  imagination 
whereby  the  world  became  to  me  my  box  of  toys."  It 
is  remembered  by  a  visitor  to  the  Thompson  household 
that  at  meal  times  the  father  would  call  upon  the  children 
to  come  out  of  their  rooms.  But  they,  for  answer,  would 
lock  their  doors  against  the  dinner  hour  :  they  were  play- 
ing with  the  toy  theatre.  Francis  went  on  playing  all 
his  life ;  his  sister  has  kept  her  heart  young  in  a 
convent.  And  there  is  no  discontent  in  this  particular 
memory  of  early  loneliness  : — 

"  There  is  a  sense  in  which  I  have  always  been  and 
even  now  remain  a  child.  But  in  another  sense  I  never 
was  a  child,  never  shared  children's  thoughts,  ways, 
tastes,  manner  of  life,  and  outlook  of  life.  I  played, 
but  my  sport  was  solitary  sport,  even  when  I  played 
with  my  sisters  ;  from  the  time  I  began  to  read  (about 
my  sixth  year)  the  game  often  (I  think)  meant  one 
thing  to  me  and  another  (quite  another)  to  them — my 
side  of  the  game  was  part  of  a  dream-scheme  invisible 
to  them.  And  from  boys,  with  their  hard  practical  objec- 
tivity of  play,  I  was  tenfold  wider  apart  than  from 
girls  with  their  partial  capacity  and  habit  of  make- 
believe." 

Crosses  he  also  experienced,  and  the  sense  of  in- 
justice was  awakened  early.  He  lost  the  prize — a 
clockwork  mouse,  no  less ! — offered  by  his  governess. 

8 


He  has  Plevna  by   Heart 

Although  first  in  lessons,  his    brisker,  punctual-footed 
sisters  and  governess  would  have  to  wait  many  times 
during  a  walk  for  him  to  come  up  with  them.    And  so  the 
mouse  went  to  a  sister.     "  I  remembered  the  prize,"  she 
writes,  "  but  had  forgotten  the  reason  of  my  luck.     But 
Francis  never  forgot  it ;  he  could  never  see  the  justice  of 
it,  he  said — and  no  wonder!"     His  tremulous,  sudden 
"  not  ready ! "  jerked  out  at  the  beginning  of  a  game  of 
cards,  is  still  heard  in  the  same  sister's  memory,  and  also 
the  leverage  of  calls  and  knockings  that  was  required  to 
get  him  from  the  house  for  church  or  a  train  ;  and  his 
unrecognising  progress  in  the  street.    Every  detail  of  the 
boy  recalls  the  man  to  one  who  had  to  get  him  forth 
from  his  chamber  when  he  was  a  grown  traveller,  and 
has  often   seen  him  oblivious   in   the    streets,  and  has 
heard  his  imperative  appeals  for  "ten  minutes  more"  in 
all  the  small  businesses  of  his  later  life.     His  toys  he 
could  surrender,  but  he  played  the  same  games  without 
them.     As  a  youth  during   the   Russo-Turkish  war  he 
built   a   city   of   chairs   with    a    plank   for  drawbridge ; 
"  Plevna,"  his  father  said,  would  be  found  written  in  his 
heart  for  the  interest  he  had  in  the  siege.     If  Plevna  was 
written  there,  then  so  was  Ladysmith.     He  had  no  plank 
drawbridge  during  the  Boer  war,  but  he  was  none  the 
less  excited  on  that  account. 

He  knew  little  of  the  technique  of  being  a  boy ;  child- 
hood was  an  easier  role.  Brothers  would  have  told 
him  it  was  bad  form  to  care  for  dolls.  He  writes,  in 
"The  Fourth  Order  of  Humanity,"  that  he  was  "with- 
held even  in  childhood  from  the  youthful  male's  con- 
tempt for  these  short-lived  parasites  of  the  nursery.  I 
questioned, with  wounded  feelings,thestraitened  feminine 
intolerance  which  said  to  the  boy  :  '  Thou  shalt  not  hold 
a  baby ;  thou  shalt  not  possess  a  doll.'  In  the  matter 
of  babies,  I  was  hopeless  to  shake  the  illiberal  pre- 
judice ;  in  the  matter  of  dolls,  I  essayed  to  confound 
it.     By   eloquence  and   fine  diplomacy   I   wrung   from 

9 


The  Child 

my  sisters  a  concession  of  dolls  ;  whence  I  date  my 
knowledge  of  the  kind.  But  ineluctable  sex  declared 
itself.  I  dramatized  them,  I  fell  in  love  with  them ; 
I  did  not  father  them ;  intolerance  was  justified  of 
her  children.  One  in  particular  I  selected,  one  with 
surpassing  fairness  crowned,  and  bowed  before  the 
fourteen  inches  of  her  skirt.  She  was  beautiful.  She 
was  one  of  Shakespeare's  heroines.  She  was  an 
amity  of  inter-removed  miracles  ;  all  wrangling  ex- 
cellencies at  pact  in  one  sole  doll ;  the  frontiers  of  jealous 
virtues  marched  in  her,  yet  trespassed  not  against  her 
peace  ;  and  her  gracious  gift  of  silence  I  have  not  known 
in  woman.  I  desired  for  her  some  worthy  name ;  and 
asked  of  my  mother :  Who  was  the  fairest  among 
living  women  ?  Laughingly  was  I  answered  that  I 
was  a  hard  questioner,  but  that  perhaps  the  Empress  of 
the  French  bore  the  bell  for  beauty.  Hence,  accordingly, 
my  Princess  of  puppetdom  received  her  style ;  and  at 
this  hour,  though  she  has  long  since  vanished  to  some 
realm  where  all  sawdust  is  wiped  for  ever  from  dolls' 
wounds,  I  cannot  hear  that  name  but  the  Past 
touches  me  with  a  rigid  agglomeration  of  small  china 
ringers." 

A  housemaid  remembers  Francis  on  the  top  of  the 
ladder  in  the  book-cupboard,  oblivious  of  her  call  to 
meals.     Of  this  early  reading  he  writes  : — 

"I  read  certain  poetry — Shakespeare,  Scott,  the  two 
chief  poems  of  Coleridge,  the  ballads  of  Macaulay — mainly 
for  its  dramatic  or  narrative  power.  No  doubt — especi- 
ally in  the  case  of  Shakespeare,  and  (to  a  less  extent) 
Coleridge  —  I  had  a  certain  sublatent,  subconscious, 
elementary  sense  of  poetry  as  I  read.  But  this  was,  for 
the  more  part,  scarce  explicit ;  and  was  largely  con- 
fined to  the  atmosphere,  the  exhalation  of  the  work. 
To  give  some  concrete  instance  of  what  I  mean.  In  the 
'  Midsummer  Night's  Dream '  I  experienced  profoundly 

10 


He  reads  Shakespeare 

that  sense  of  trance,  of  dream-like  dimness,  the  moon- 
light glimmer  and  sleep-walking  enchantment,  embodied 
in  that  wonderful  fairy  epilogue  'Now  the  cat'  &c, 
and  suggested  by  Shakespeare  in  the  lines,  '  These 
things  seem  small  and  undistinguishable,  like  far  off 
mountains  turned  into  clouds.'  I  did  indeed,  as  I 
read  the  last  words  of  Puck,  feel  as  if  I  were  waking 
from  a  dream  and  rub  my  mental  eyes.  No  doubt  the 
sense  of  the  lines  '  These  things '  &c.,  was  quickened 
(it  may  be  created — I  will  not  at  this  distance  say)  by 
an  excellent  note  on  them  in  the  edition  I  read.  But 
the  effect  on  me  of  the  close  was  beyond  and  indepen- 
dent of  all  notes.  So,  in  truth,  was  it  with  the  play  as  a 
whole.  So,  again,  I  profoundly  experienced  the  atmos- 
pheric effect  of  'Macbeth,'  'Lear,'  'The  Tempest,' 
'  Coriolanus,'  of  all  the  plays  in  various  degree.  Never 
again  have  I  sensed  so  exquisitely,  so  virginally,  the  aura 
of  the  plays  as  I  sensed  it  then.  Less  often  I  may  have 
drunk  the  effluence  of  particular  passages,  as  in  the  case 
already  instanced.  But  never,  in  any  individual  passage, 
did  I  sense  the  poetry  of  the  poetry,  the  poetry  as  poetry. 
To  express  it  differently,  I  was  over  young  to  have 
awakened  to  the  poetry  of  words,  the  beauty  of  language 
which  is  the  true  flower  of  poetry,  the  sense  of  magic  in 
diction,  of  words  suddenly  becoming  a  marvel  and  quick 
with  a  preternatural  life.  It  is  the  opening  of  the  eyes 
to  that  wonder  which  signalises  the  puberty  of  poetry. 
I  was,  in  fact,  as  a  child,  where  most  men  remain  all 
their  lives.  Nay,  they  are  not  so  far,  for  my  elemental 
perception,  my  dawn  before  sunrise,  had  a  passion  and 
prophetic  intensity  which  they  (with  rare  exceptions) 
lack.     It  was  not  stunted,  it  was  only  nascent." 

Another  recollection  : — 

"  I  understood  love  in  Shakespeare  and  Scott,  which 
I  connected  with  the  lovely,  long-tressed  women  of 
F.  C.  Selous'  illustrations  to  Cassell's  Shakespeare,  my 

ii 


The  Child 

childish  introduction  to  the  supreme  poet.1  Those  girls 
of  floating  hair  I  loved  ;  and  admired  the  long-haired, 
beautiful  youths  whom  I  met  in  these  pictures,  and  the 
illustrations  of  early  English  History.  Shakespeare  I 
had  already  tried  to  read  for  the  benefit  of  my  sisters 
and  the  servants  ;  but  both  kicked  against  '  Julius  Caesar  ' 
as  dry — though  they  diplomatically  refrained  from  say- 
ing so.  Comparing  the  pictures  of  mediaeval  women 
with  the  crinolined  and  chignoned  girls  of  my  own  day, 
I  embraced  the  fatal  but  undoubting  conviction  that 
beauty  expired  somewhere  about  the  time  of  Henry  VIII. 
I  believe  I  connected  that  awful  catastrophe  with  the 
Reformation  (merely  because,  from  the  pictures,  and 
to  my  taste,  they  seemed  to  have  taken  place  about  the 
same  time)." 

He  "first  beheld  the  ocean"  at  Colwyn  Bay  when  he 
was  five  years  old.  It  was  there  that  the  Thompsons 
spent  their  holidays,  several  excursions  there  during  a 
year  keeping  them  in  touch  with  the  sea.  Its  sunsets 
are  still  remembered  by  Mother  Austin,  his  sister,  in  her 
convent  in  black  Manchester,  where  her  skies  are  for 
the  most  part  locked  behind  bricks  or  otherwise  tampered 
with.  Remembered  by  this  sister  as  particularly  attract- 
ing Francis  is  "the  phosphorescence  on  the  crest  of 
the  waves  at  dusk."  Her  memory  is  good,  for  I  find 
in  a  long  mislaid  note-book  the  following  verse  of  an 
early  epithalamium  : — 

The  mighty  waters  of  his  soul 

Beat  on  her  strand  and  break  in  fire  ; 

Her  spirit's  shore,  on  which  they  roll, 
Bursts  into  answering  desire 

From  all  its  trembling  depths  together, 
Till  their  encountering  souls  illume 

The  nuptial  curtaining  of  gloom. 

1  A  photograph  (now  missing),  taken  at  the  age  of  eleven  or  twelve,  shows 
Francis  with  a  small  bust  of  Shakespeare — the  treasured  gift  of  his  mother. 
In  all  the  early  photographs  he  conforms  to  one  early  description — "  a 
boy  known  for  his  piety,  obedience,  and  truthfulness" — and  he  is  tidy,  too  ! 

12 


.  J~  ra  uci.i ,  hi. j  .U'.'t/rr.'t.  a  /i  (/  t  lie/  r  (if//.) 

1S/0 

1    ./lir    ./'ciirlll    I     n/rir-       'Jtumatiitti    j 


He  beholds  the  Ocean 

He  adds,  "  I  do  not  know  whether  the  image  is  alto- 
gether clear  to  the  ordinary  reader,  as  it  was  in  my  own 
mind.  Anyone,  however,  who  has  ever  seen  on  a  dark 
night  a  phosphorescent  sea  breaking  in  long  billows  of 
light  on  the  viewless  beach,  while,  as  the  hidden  pools 
and  recessed  waters  of  the  strand  are  stirred  by  the 
onrush,  they  respond  through  the  darkness  in  swarms 
of  jewel-like  flashes,  will  understand  the  image  at  once." 

The  sea  was  there,  and  Francis  bathed,  timidly  and 
always  with  the  consecrated  medal  that  was  still  round 
his  neck  when  he  died.  He  would  not  strip  it  from 
its  place,  and  his  sister,  only  less  pious,  would  laugh  at 
his  anxiety  concerning  it.  On  the  beach  brother  and 
sister  would  score  Hornby's  centuries.  That  was  the 
chief  use  and  joy  of  the  sands  to  the  enthusiasts ;  the 
whole  series  of  triumphs  would  be  thus  shiftingly  writ 
in  full  particularity.  To  Colwyn  Bay  he  went  before 
Ushaw,  during  the  holidays  and  after  he  left  college, 
and  he  went  also  to  Kent's  Bank,  near  Ulverstone,  to 
Holyhead  and  New  Brighton,  so  that  it  may  be  wondered 
why  his  poetry  harbours  so  few  seas.  Topographically, 
his  verse  is  very  bare  of  allusion.  The  chapter  of  his 
childhood  must  close  without  the  benefits  of  such  witness, 
unless,  as  indeed  it  should  be,  the  whole  body  of  his 
poetry  is  taken  as  the  evidence  of  his  teeming  experiences. 
Only  in  a  nonsense  verse  found  in  his  note-book 
(where  doggerel  keeps  close,  as  the  grave-digger  to 
Hamlet,  to  the  exquisite  fragments  of  his  poetry,  so 
that  strings  of  puns  must  be  disentangled  from  chains 
of  images)  does  he  confess  the  place-names  of  his  child- 
hood.    Runs  the  doggerel  : — 

All  along  the  gliding  Lyne 

They  told  the  nymphs  of  mislaid  wine, 

And  only  by  the  mooney  Med 

They  found  it  had  got  in  the  driver's  head. 

But    even    early    experiences    are    rare.     In    "Dream 

13 


The  Child 

Tryst  "  one  is  employed.  He  was  eleven,  older  by  two 
years  than  Dante  smitten  with  love  in  Florence,  when 
he  met  the  Lucide  of  that  poem  in  Ashton-under-Lyne. 
She  was  a  school-friend  of  his  sister,  and  tells  me  she 
had  no  knowledge  of  Francis's  admiration.1 

It  may  not  be  supposed  that  Francis  was  too  busy 
collecting  lore  of  Hornby's  centuries  or  other  boyish 
excitements  to  be  moved  by  nature  ;  he  tells  little  of  his 
early  childhood's  experiences  because  he  was  moved 
only  to  meditative  dumbness,  whereas  later,  when  he 
knew  he  was  a  poet,  each  experience,  however  fleeting, 
smote  upon  his  heart  as  a  hammer  on  an  anvil,  and  the 
words  flew  from  each  immediate  stroke.  He  was  too 
full  of  emotional  adventures  when  he  was  sent,  after  his 
trials,  to  Storrington  and  Pantasaph  to  need  to  ransack 
the  unmeaning  confusion  of  his  early  impressions. 
Childhood  proper  was  snatched  from  him  when  he 
became  a  schoolboy.  His  childhood  he  had  called  the 
true  Paradisus  Vitas,  and  he  would  have  combated  the 
convention  that  school-days  are  the  happiest  of  one's 
life.  In  an  essay  on  his  own  childhood  it  had  been  his 
intention  to  include  an  account  of  his  first  year  at 
Ushaw  for  the  sake  of  contrast  with  his  home  existence, 
telling  of  the  "  refugium  or  sanctuary  of  fairy-tales,  and 
dream  of  flying  to  the  fairies  for  shelter  "  that  he  made 
there. 

1  "Dream  Tryst"  was  afterwards  alluded  to  by  Mr.  Edward  Healy 
Thompson  as  "  erotic  "—a  poem,  explained  Francis,  "addressed  to  a  child. 
Nay,  hardly  that— to  the  memory  only- of  a  child  known  but  once  when  I  was 
eleven  years  old." 


14 


CHAPTER    II:    THE    BOY 

In  1870,  after  the  summer  vacation,  Francis  was  sent  to 
Ushaw  College,  four  miles  from  Durham.  By  the  kind 
fate  that  has  kept  many  memories  of  him  alive,  his 
journey  thither  is  remembered  by  Bishop  Casartelli, 
who  wrote  to  my  father  at  the  time  of  the  poet's 
death  : — 

"  I  doubt  if  I  ever  saw  F.  Thompson  since  his  boyhood.  I 
well  remember  taking  him  up  to  Ushaw  as  a  timid,  shrinking 
little  boy  when  he  was  first  sent  to  college  in  the  late  sixties  ; 
and  how  the  other  boys  in  the  carriage  teased  and  frightened 
him — for  'tis  their  nature  to — and  how  the  bag  of  jam  tarts  in 
his  pocket  got  hopelessly  squashed  in  the  process  !  I  never 
thought  there  were  the  germs  of  divine  poesy  in  him  then. 
Strange  that  about  the  same  time  (but  I  think  earlier)  my  class- 
mate at  Ushaw  was  the  future  Lafcadio  Hearn — in  those  days  he 
was  { Jack '  or  '  Paddy '  Hearn ;  I  never  heard  the  Greek  forename 
till  the  days  of  his  fame." 

Timid  his  journey  must  have  been,  for  all  the  crises 
of  his  life  were  timidly  and  doubtfully  encountered. 
Dr.  Mann  gives  some  account  of  the  event  and  of  his 
first  impressions  of  the  new  boy  : — 

"  Canon  Henry  Gillow — the  Prefect  of  that  time  in  the  Semi- 
nary— assigned  him  his  bedplace,  and  gave  to  him  two  ministering 
angels  in  the  guise  of  play-fellows.  Then,  for  initiation,  a  whin- 
bush  probably  occupied  his  undivided  attention,  and  he  would 
emerge  from  it  with  a  variant  on  his  patronymic  appellation  ! 
'  Tommy '  was  he  then  known  to  those  amongst  whom  he  lived 
for  the  next  seven  years. 

"  His  mode  of  procedure  along  the  ambulacrum  was  quite  his 
own,  and  you  might  know  at  the  furthest  point  from  him  that 

15 


The  Boy 


you  had  'Tommy'  in  perspective.  He  sidled  along  the  wall, 
and  every  now  and  then  he  would  hitch  up  the  collar  of  his  coat 
as  though  it  were  slipping  off  his  none  too  thickly  covered 
shoulder-blades.  He  early  evinced  a  love  for  books,  and  many 
an  hour,  when  his  schoolfellows  were  far  afield,  would  he  spend 
in  the  well-stocked  juvenile  library.  His  tastes  were  not  as  ours. 
Of  history  he  was  very  fond,  and  particularly  of  wars  and  battles. 
Having  read  much  of  Cooper,  Marryat,  Ballantyne,  he  sought 
to  put  some  of  their  episodes  into  the  concrete,  and  he  organised 
a  piratical  band." 

Another  impression  comes  from  Father  George 
Phillips  :— 

"  I  was  his  master  in  Lower  Figures,  and  remember  him  very 
well  as  a  delicate-looking  boy  with  a  somewhat  pinched  expression 
of  face,  very  quiet  and  unobtrusive,  and  perhaps  a  little  melancholy. 
He  always  showed  himself  a  good  boy,  and,  I  think,  gave  no  one 
any  trouble." 

From  Dr.  Mann's  description,  too,  you  get  glimpses 
of  the  man.  Those  shoulder-blades  were  always  ill- 
covered.  The  plucking-up  of  the  coat  behind  was,  after 
the  lighting  of  matches,  always  the  most  familiar  action 
of  the  man  we  remember  ;  while  the  tragedy  of  the  tarts 
seems  strangely  familiar  to  one  who  later  had  a  thousand 
meals  with  him.  Fires  he  always  haunted,  and  his 
clothes  were  burnt  on  sundry  occasions,  as  we  are  told 
they  were  before  the  class-room  fire.  But  of  the 
piracy  what  shall  we  say  ?  Why,  if  he  did  not  lose  that 
habit  of  the  collar  and  never  shook  off  the  crumbs  of 
those  tarts,  why  did  he  forget  the  way  to  be  a  pirate  ? 
There  was  no  rollick  in  Francis,  and  his  own  talk  of  his 
childhood  showed  him  to  have  always  been  a  youth  of 
most  undaring  exploits.  A  good  picture  of  his  person 
is  to  be  had  from  his  schoolfellows'  recollections  ;  for 
his  mood  we  must  go  to  his  own  recollections.  In 
writing  of  Shelley  he  builds  up  a  poet's  boyhood  from 
his  own  experience  ;  there  is  no  speculation  here  : — 

16 


Grief  and  the  Child 

"  Now  Shelley  never  could  have  been  a  man,  for  he 
never  was  a  boy,"  is  the  argument.     "  And  the  reason  lay 
in  the  persecution  which  overclouded  his  school-days. 
Of  that  persecution's  effect  upon   him  he  has  left  us, 
in  'The  Revolt  of  Islam,'  a  picture  which  to  many  or 
most  people  very  probably  seems  a  poetical  exaggeration  ; 
partly  because  Shelley  appears  to  have  escaped  physical 
brutality,    partly  because  adults  are    inclined   to   smile 
tenderly  at  childish  sorrows  which  are  not  caused  by 
physical  suffering.     That  he  escaped  for  the  most  part 
bodily  violence  is  nothing  to  the  purpose.      It  is  the 
petty   malignant   annoyance   recurring   hour   by   hour, 
day  by   day,  month  by  month,  until  its  accumulation 
becomes  an  agony ;  it  is  this  which  is  the  most  terrible 
weapon  that  boys   have  against  their  fellow  boy,  who 
is  powerless  to  shun  it  because,  unlike  the  man,  he  has 
virtually    no    privacy.      His   is   the   torture   which    the 
ancients  used,  when    they  anointed   their   victim  with 
honey  and  exposed  him  naked  to  the  restless  fever  of 
the   flies.     He   is   a   little  St.  Sebastian,  sinking   under 
the  incessant  flight  of  shafts  which  skilfully  avoid  the 
vital  parts.      We  do   not,  therefore,  suspect   Shelley  of 
exaggeration  :    he   was,    no    doubt,    in    terrible   misery. 
Those  who  think  otherwise  must  forget  their  own  past. 
Most  people,  we  suppose,  must  forget  what  they  were 
like   when    they  were  children  :    otherwise  they  would 
know  that  the  griefs  of  their  childhood  were  passionate 
abandonment,    decliirants    (to    use    a    characteristically 
favourite  phrase  of  modern   French  literature)  as  the 
griefs   of   their    maturity.      Children's   griefs   are  little, 
certainly;  but  so  is  the  child,  so  is  its  endurance,  so  is 
its  field  of  vision,  while  its    nervous  impressionability 
is    keener  than  ours.      Grief  is  a  matter  of  relativity  : 
the  sorrow   should   be  estimated    by  its  proportion    to 
the  sorrower  ;  a  gash  is  as  painful  to  one  as  an  amputa- 
tion to  another.     Pour  a  puddle  into  a  thimble,  or  an 
Atlantic  into  Etna  ;   both   thimble  and  mountain   over- 

17  B 


The   Boy 

flow.  Adult  fools  !  would  not  the  angels  smile  at  our 
griefs,  were  not  angels  too  wise  to  smile  at  them  ?  So 
beset,  the  child  fled  into  the  tower  of  his  own  soul, 
and  raised  the  drawbridge.  He  threw  out  a  reserve, 
encysted  in  which  he  grew  to  maturity  unaffected  by 
the  intercourses  that  modify  the  maturity  of  others  into 
the  thing  we  call  a  man." 

When  he  recalls  in  a  note-book  his  own  first  impres- 
sions of  school  he  could  not  write  as  a  boy,  or  of  boys  : 

"  The  malignity  of  my  tormentors  was  more  heart- 
lacerating  than  the  pain  itself.  It  seemed  to  me — 
virginal  to  the  world's  ferocity — a  hideous  thing  that 
strangers  should  dislike  me,  should  delight  and  triumph 
in  pain  to  me,  though  I  had  done  them  no  ill  and  bore 
them  no  malice  ;  that  malice  should  be  without  pro- 
vocative malice.  That  seemed  to  me  dreadful,  and  a 
veritable  demoniac  revelation.  Fresh  from  my  tender 
home,  and  my  circle  of  just-judging  friends,  these 
malignant  school-mates  who  danced  round  me  with 
mocking  evil  distortion  of  laughter — God's  good  laughter, 
gift  of  all  things  that  look  back  the  sun — were  to  me 
devilish  apparitions  of  a  hate  now  first  known  ;  hate 
for  hate's  sake,  cruelty  for  cruelty's  sake.  And  as  such 
they  live  in  my  memory,  testimonies  to  the  murky 
aboriginal  demon  in  man." 

The  word  "  reserve  "  is  written  large  across  the  history 
of  the  schoolboy  and  the  man  ;  that  he  laid  it  aside  in 
his  poetry  and  with  the  rare  friend  only  made  its  habi- 
tual observance  the  more  marked.  He  was  safest  and 
happiest  alone  at  Ushaw,  and  little  would  his  school- 
fellows understand  the  distresses  of  his  mind  there. 
One  at  least  I  know  who  could  not  recognise  Thomp- 
son's painful  memories  as  being  conceivably  based 
on  actual  experience.     Teasing,  at  best,  is  an  ignorant 

18 


Teasing,  and  a  Punishment 

occupation ;     at    worst,    not    meant    to    inflict    lasting 
wrong. 

I  have  in  mind  two  gay  and  gentle  men,  once  his 
class-fellows,  who  are  unfailingly  merry  at  the  mention 
of  college  hardships  ;  they  are  now  priests,  whose  pro- 
fession and  desires  are  to  do  kindness  to  their  fellow- 
men,  and  I  do  not  suspect  them  of  ever  having  done  a 
living  creature  an  intentional  hurt.  Thompson's  poetry 
they  can  understand,  but  not  his  unhappiness  at 
school. 

Nor  does  your  normal  boy,  of  Ushaw  or  any  other 
school,  admit  that  wrong  is  done  him  by  the  rod.  The 
rod  bears  blossoms,  says  the  schoolboy  grown  up  ;  and 
the  convention  which  makes  men  call  their  school-days 
the  happiest  of  their  lives  likewise  makes  them  smile  at 
the  punishments  in  the  prefect's  study.  For  the  average 
schoolboy  this  attitude  is  perhaps  an  honest  one.  His 
school-days  are  happy  ;  the  cane  is  only  an  inconvenience 
to  be  avoided,  or,  if  impossible  of  avoidance,  to  be  grimaced 
at  and  tolerated.  But  every  boy  at  school  is  not  a 
school-boy,  and  the  boy  at  school  has  to  suffer  general- 
isations about  the  school-boy  and  the  rod.  The 
commonweal  spells  some  individual's  woe,  and  doubtless 
the  discipline  proper  for  the  normal  child  was  hard  for 
the  abnormal.  The  boy  at  school,  unlike  the  school-boy, 
is  not  brave,  or,  if  he  is  brave,  his  courage  is  of  a  tragic 
quality  that  should  not  be  required  of  him.  The  school- 
boy's account  of  the  punishment  of  the  boy  at  school 
illustrates  the  difference  between  the  two  ;  for  the  one  it  is 
fit  matter  for  an  anecdote,  for  Francis  it  was  an  episode 
never  to  be  alluded  to.     Dr.  Mann  writes  : — 

"  Some  old  Ushaw  men  may  wonder  whether,  in  his  passage 
through  the  Seminary,  he  ever  fell  into  the  hands  of  retributive 
justice.  To  the  best  of  his  schoolfellows'  recollections  he  did.  It 
fell  on  a  certain  day  during  our  drilling-hour  that  Sergeant 
Railton  dropt  into  confidential  tones,  and  we  had  grouped  round 
him  to  drink  in  his  memories  of  the  Indian  Mutiny.     '  Tommy/ 

J9 


The  Boy 

who  scented  a  battle  from  afar,  was  with  us.  All  went  well  until 
the  steps  of  authority  were  heard  coming  round  the  corner  near 
the  music  rooms,  and  with  well-simulated  sternness  our  Sergeant 
ordered  us  back  into  our  ranks.  '  Tommy,'  who,  doubtless,  was 
already  making  pictures  of  Lucknow  or  Cawnpore  on  his  mental 
canvas,  was  last  to  dress  up,  and  was  summarily  taken  off  to  Dr. 
Wilkinson's  Court  of  Petty  Sessions,  where,  without  privilege  of 
jury  or  advocate,  he  paid  his  penalty.  He  was  indignant,  naturally, 
not  to  say  sore,  over  this  treatment."    [» 

Such  is  the  gallant  and  approved  vein  of  school 
reminiscence,  of  which  one  of  the  classics  is  the  jest 
about  the  Rev.  James  Boyer,  the  terror  of  Christ's 
Hospital :  "  It  was  lucky  the  cherubim  who  took  him  to 
Heaven  were  nothing  but  wings  and  faces,  or  he  would 
infallibly  have  flogged  them  by  the  way."  l 

But  Francis  was  neither  cheerful,  nor  mock-heroic, 
like  Lafcadio  Hearn,  whose  "The  boy  stood  on  the 
bloody  floor  where  many  oft  had  stood"  was  conned 
by  his  class-mates  at  Ushaw.  Nor  did  a  sense  of  the 
grotesque  assuage  the  sense  of  injury,  as  in  the  Daumier 
drawing  of  a  small  boy's  agonised  contortions  under  the 
stroke  of  a  wooden  spoon  upon  the  palm  of  the  hand. 
He  did  not  join  his  past  school-mates  in  the  brave  bursts 
and  claps  of  laughter  and  winking  silences  that  I  have 
known  break  in  upon  the  narration  of  ancient  floggings. 
Says  Lamb,  in  describing  Mr.  Bird's  blister-raising 
ferule,  "The  idea  of  a  rod  is  accompanied  with  some- 
thing of  the  ludicrous":  with  Francis's  school-mates  it 
provokes  a  gaiety  almost  beyond  the  requirements  of 
priestly  light-heartedness.  I  am  reluctant  and  ashamed 
to  be  less  brave  on  the  poet's  behalf — to  be  out  of  the 
joke;  and  yet  I  find  it  difficult  to  put  a  better  face  on 
it.  To  remember  Thompson's  own  extreme  gentleness 
is  to  be  intolerant  of  a  small  but  over-early  injury. 

1  Lamb's  jest  was  perhaps  remembered  when  F.  T.  wrote :  "  If  a  boy 
were  let  into  Heaven,  he  would  chase  the  little  angels  to  pluck  the  feathers 
out  of  their  wings  " — a  justification  of  Boyer  rather  than  the  Boy. 

20 


Henry  Patmore 

Being  no  observer,  Francis  failed  to  find  the  friends 
he  might  have  found  at  Ushaw.  Vernon  Blackburn 
was  his  friend,  but  not  till  after-life.  Henry  Patmore, 
son  of  the  poet,  in  a  class  above  him,  was  as  little 
known  to  him  as  he  to  Henry  Patmore.  Those  who 
remember  Francis  as  a  shy  and  unusual  boy,  remember 
Henry  Patmore  —  "Skinny"  Patmore  —  in  much  the 
same  terms.  These  two  unusual  boys  had  no  more 
than  the  acquaintance  of  sight  that  is  common  in  a 
school  of  over  three  hundred  strong.  Another  school- 
fellow was  Mr.  Augustine  Watts,  who  married  Gertrude 
Patmore,  Henry's  sister.  It  was  from  Ushaw,  where  he 
went  in  1870  (Thompson's  year),  that  Henry  Patmore 
wrote  to  his  step-mother  : — 

"  I  will  begin  by  telling  you  I  am  very  happy.  I  have  been  much 
happier  during  these  last  two  or  three  months  than  ever  before.  .  . 
My  bump  of  poetry  is  developing  rapidly.  For  now  poetry  seems 
to  me  to  be  the  noblest  and  greatest  thing,  after  religion,  on  earth. 
.  .  .  But  what  I  mean  by  the  development  of  my  poetic  bump  is 
that  I  can  now  see  the  poetry  in  Milton,  Wordsworth,  Papa,  and 
Dante  as  I  never  could  till  quite  lately ;  and  I  really  think  that 
being  able  to  enjoy  poetry  is  a  new  source  of  happiness  added  to 
my  life." 

At  Ushaw,  then,  were  two  readers  in  the  conspiracy 
of  spacious  song.  But  Francis  wrote  no  tidings  of 
happiness  home.  Of  schoolboys  in  general  Henry  Pat- 
more wrote,  and,  in  writing,  disproved  his  belief : — 

"It  is  quite  sickening,  after  reading  the  '  Apologia,'  to  turn  to 
those  around  me  and  to  myself,  and  see  how  very  frivolous  and 
aimless  and  selfish  our  lives  are ;  how  we  go  on  living  from  day 
to  day  for  the  day,  as  if  we  were  animals  put  here  to  make  the  best 
of  our  time,  and  then  '  go  off  the  hooks  '  to  make  way  for  others. 
Of  course,  grown-up  people  often  live  for  God,  but  I  think  nearly 
all  my  '  compeers  '  here  (myself  included)  are  animals." 

Paddy  Hearn  (referred  to  before) — the  Lafcadio  of 
later    life — was    an    older    schoolfellow.      College    can 

21 


The  Boy 

be  all  things  to  all  boys ;  some  may  find  there  a 
genial  scene  and  cordial  entertainment ;  others  un- 
friendly and  frightening  surroundings.  The  case  of 
Lafcadio  Hearn,  who  arrived  in  Ushaw  in  1863, 
a  boy  of  thirteen,  is  not  comparable  to  Thompson's, 
for  Hearn  mixed  a  strong  rebelliousness  with  his 
nervousness ;  and  he  was  neither  unhappy  nor  un- 
popular, although  peculiar,  and  even  "  undesirable " 
from  the  principal's  point  of  view.  Sent  there,  like 
Thompson,  that  he  might  discover  if  his  inclination  lay 
in  the  direction  of  the  priesthood,  like  Thompson  he 
drifted,  after  Ushaw,  to  London,  and  suffered  there. 
The  circumstances  are  strangely  like  those  of  Francis's 
case.  But  the  invitation  of  the  road  and  sea  maintained 
Lafcadio's  spirits.  He  endured  his  poverty  mostly  near 
the  docks  :  "When  the  city  roars  around  you,  and  your 
heart  is  full  of  the  bitterness  of  the  struggle  for  life, 
there  comes  to  you  at  long  intervals  in  the  dingy  garret 
or  the  crowded  street  some  memory  of  white  breakers 
and  vast  stretches  of  wrinkled  sand,  and  far  fluttering 
breezes  that  seem  to  whisper  'come.'"  Thereafter  the 
scope  of  his  thought  and  action,  with  murder-case 
reporting  in  New  York,  with  his  unconfined  sym- 
pathies for  rebel  blood,  and  contempt  for  "Anglo- 
Saxon  prudery,"  might  most  easily  be  described  as  the 
opposite  of  Thompson's.  A  closer  observer  marks 
something  more  remarkable  than  dissimilarity.  His 
Japanese  biographer  says  of  him  that  "  he  laughed  with 
the  flowers  and  the  birds,  and  cried  with  the  dying 
trees"  —  words  which  have  an  accidental  likeness  to 
"  Heaven  and  I  wept  together." 

Hearn's  own  words,  in  a  letter  to  Krehbeil,  the 
musician,  show  a  much  more  deeply-rooted  likeness. 
He  says : — 

"  What  you  say  about  the  disinclination  to  work  for  years  upon 
a  theme  for  pure  love's  sake  touches  me,  because  I  have  felt  that 
despair  so  long  and  so  often.    And  yet  I  believe  that  all  the  world's 

22 


Lafcadio   Hearn 

art-work — all  that  is  eternal — was  thus  wrought.  And  I  also 
believe  that  no  work  made  perfect  for  the  pure  love  of  art  can 
perish,  save  by  strange  and  rare  accident.  Yet  the  hardest  of  all 
sacrifices  for  the  artist  is  this  sacrifice  to  art,  this  trampling  of 
self  underfoot.  It  is  the  supreme  test  for  admission  into  the  ranks 
of  the  eternal  priests.  It  is  the  bitter  and  fruitless  sacrifice  which 
the  artist's  soul  is  bound  to  make.  But  without  the  sacrifice,  can 
we  hope  for  the  grace  of  heaven  ?  What  is  the  reward  ?  the  con- 
sciousness of  inspiration  only  ?  I  think  art  gives  a  new  faith.  I 
think,  all  jesting  aside,  that  could  I  create  something  I  felt  to  be 
sublime,  I  should  feel  also  that  the  Unknowable  had  selected  me 
for  a  mouthpiece,  for  a  medium  of  utterance,  in  the  holy  cycling 
of  its  eternal  purpose,  and  I  should  know  the  pride  of  the  prophet 
that  has  seen  the  face  of  God." 

Thompson's  "The  conduit  running  wine  of  song" 
exactly  matches  the  last  of  Hearn's  sentences.  Is 
that  the  Ushaw  spirit  ?  Probably  Hearn  was  too  little 
in  touch  with  the  school  to  have  taken  away  such 
aspirations,  even  had  they  been  in  the  air.  But  it  is 
noteworthy  that  when  the  time  came  for  him  to  choose 
a  school  for  his  own  son  he  wrote  : — 

"  What  shall  I  do  with  him  ?  I  am  beginning  to  think  that 
really  much  of  the  ecclesiastical  education  (bad  and  cruel  as  I  used 
to  imagine  it)  is  founded  on  the  best  experience  of  man  under 
civilisation  ;  and  I  understand  lots  of  things  I  used  to  think  super- 
stitious bosh,  and  now  think  solid  wisdom." 

When  an  enthusiastic  critic  said,  at  the  time  Thomp- 
son's first  book  was  published,  that  Ushaw  would  be 
chiefly  remembered  in  the  future  for  her  connexion 
with  the  poet,  Ushaw  smiled,  counting  the  host  of  canons 
of  the  Church  whom  she  had  reared,  her  bishops,  her 
archbishops,  and  her  cardinals.  Ushaw  remembered, 
too,  Cardinal  Wiseman's  saying :  li  Ushaw's  sons  are 
known  not  by  words,  but  by  deeds."  But  a  few  college 
friends  did  their  best  to  keep  Francis  in  sight  during 
his  early  years  in  London,  and  if  they  did  not  help  him, 
it  was  because   he  effectively  hid   himself   among   his 

23 


The  Boy 

adversities.  It  would  have  been  more  pain  to  brook  the 
conditions  of  assistance,  more  impossible  to  follow  a 
regime  of  rescue  than  to  shiver  unobserved  on  the 
Embankment,  or  starve,  with  no  invitation  or  punctuality 
to  observe  save  the  long  and  silent  appeals  of  an  empty 
stomach,  in  the  Strand.  He  had  privacies  to  keep 
intact,  aloofness  that  made  a  law  to  him,  and  these  he 
never  abused,  even  in  a  doss-house.  "  What  right  have 
you  to  ask  me  that  question  ?  "  he  said  to  the  gentle- 
man who  accosted  him  in  the  street,  asking  him  if  he 
were  saved.  He  had  then  been  fifteen  nights  upon  the 
streets,  a  torture  insufficient  to  curb  the  spirit. 

Dr.  Carroll,  Bishop  of  Shrewsbury,  Fr.  Adam  Wilkin- 
son, and  Dr.  Mann  were  of  the  few  who  remembered 
or  sought  to  renew  acquaintance.  It  is  said  that 
Bishop  Carroll,  when  he  came  to  London,  would  search 
"with  unaccustomed  glance  "  the  ranks  of  the  sandwich- 
men  for  his  face.  And  when  later  the  poet  had  a 
friend,  and  was  to  be  found  at  his  house,  Bishop  Carroll 
sought  him  there  in  London,  and  at  Pantasaph  from 
time  to  time,  and  had  the  poet,  if  not  in  his  diocese, 
almost  within  his  fold.  We  have  Dr.  Mann's  record  of 
a  visit  to  London  and  a  meal  with  Francis  at  Palace 
Court,  but  I  know  of  no  other  meeting  with  a  college 
friend.  Thompson  had  never  been  a  schoolboy,  nor  did 
he  grow  into  an  "  old  boy." 

Applicable  to  him  are  the  words  of  Hawthorne,  of 
which  he  was  fond  : — "  Lingering  always  so  near  his 
childhood,  he  had  sympathies  with  children,  and  kept 
his  heart  the  fresher  thereby  like  a  reservoir  into  which 
rivulets  are  flowing,  not  far  from  the  fountain-head." 

The  distractions  of  his  imagination  were  the  most 
pertinent  to  his  needs  at  Ushaw.  Some  scraps  from  his 
class  compositions  and  his  note-books  do  not  sufficiently 
illustrate  the  sway  that  literature  already  held  in  his 
heart  and  brain,  for  they  are  but  exercises  in  expression, 
stiff  words  on  parade,  rather  than  the  natural  swinging 

24 


Ushaw  Recreations 

publication  of  his  thoughts.  A  writer  in  the  Ushaw 
magazine  lends  us  some  knowledge  of  his  literary  and 
other  recreations  : — 

"  He  never  fretted  his  hour  upon  the  stage  when  our  annual '  Sem 
play  '  delighted  the  senior  house.  A  pity  that  was,  for  such  an  ap- 
pearance might  have  helped  to  remove  some  of  the  awkward  shyness 
which  characterised  him  to  the  end.  His  recreation,  as  a  rule,  did 
not  assume  a  vigorous  form,  though  in  the  racquet  houses  he 
showed  that  at  hand-ball  he  attained  a  proficiency  above  the 
average.  At  '  cat '  his  services  were  at  times  enlisted  to  make  up 
the  full  complement  of  players.  But  here  his  muse  was  his  un- 
doing, for  a  ball  sharply  sent  out  in  his  direction  would  find  him 
absent.  He  does  not  therefore  figure  as  a  party-game  player.  He 
seldom  handled  a  bat  or  trundled  a  ball.  Most  of  his  leisure  hours 
were  spent  in  our  small  reading-room  amongst  the  shades  of  dead 
and  gone  authors.  It  says  a  good  deal  for  his  perseverance  and 
patience  that  he  sometimes  read  and  wrote  when  all  around  him 
was  strife  and  turmoil  of  miniature  battle.  Thompson  would  be 
there,  and  pause  was  given  to  his  dreamings ;  he  was  rudely 
brought  down  from  his  own  peculiar  empyrean.  After  the  vaca- 
tion of  1874  he  automatically  changes  his  surroundings,  going  from 
Seminary  to  College.  The  master  who  had  then  care  of  him 
exerted  much  influence  over  him ;  he  was  a  man  of  reading  and 
a  rare  discriminating  taste.  In  Grammar  Francis  had  a  still 
larger  selection  of  books,  and  many  of  his  beloved  poets  were 
well  represented." 

Books  that  were  not  school-books  compelled  his 
attention  in  other  places  and  at  other  times.  It  is 
remembered  that 

"  He  would  deliberately  take  up  his  seat  opposite  Mr.  F.  S., 
who  presided  at  the  cross-table  near  the  door,  and,  after  erecting 
a  pile  of  books  in  front  of  him,  would  devote  his  whole  soul  to  a 
volume  of  poetry.  But  Mr.  F.  S.  was  not  of  a  restless,  suspicious 
nature.  Or  it  may  be  that  he  saw  out  of  his  spectacles  more 
than  we  supposed,  and  of  set  purpose  did  not  interfere  with  the 
broodings  of  genius." 

Glimpses  of  Francis  in  the  social  life  of  the  college 
are    few.     He    was    not    so    social   but  that   somebody 

25 


The  Boy 

else  sang  his   songs  jfor  him.     Dr.   Mann  describes   a 
picnic : — 

"  After  regaling  ourselves  at  Cornsay  with  tea,  coffee,  and  toast, 
we  did  not  leave  the  board  till  the  old  songs  had  been  sung.  I 
remember  only  the  refrain.  The  first  verse  told  of  the  virtues 
of  our  President  (Dr.  Tate),  the  second  of  the  Vice  (Dr.  Gillow), 
the  third  of  the  Procurator  (Mr.  Croskell),  and  so  on,  each  verse 
ending  with — 

Fill  up  your  glass,  here's  to  the  ass 

Who  fancies  his  coffee  is  wine  in  a  glass." 

Somebody  else,  too,  recited  his  prose  for  him,  de- 
claiming "The  Storming  of  the  Bridge  of  Lodi  "  amid 
applause  in  the  Hall  on  a  College-Speaking  Day.  It  is 
the  fourteen  year  essay  of  a  schoolboy,  and  a  fair  speci- 
men of  the  stuff  that  put  him  head  of  his  English 
class.  The  piece  took  the  ears  of  his  schoolfellows  ;  it 
was  recited  by  his  particular  class  friend  in  the  school 
debating-room,  and  thence,  having  been  heard  by  the 
class-master  of  elocution,  was  promoted  to  the  Hall,  in 
the  company  of  passages  from  Macaulay  and  Gibbon.1 

1  Prowess  in  English  was  officially  reported.  From  Father  Nowlan,  a 
friend  of  the  family,  to  Doctor  Thompson,  Easter,  1872: — "You  will 
be  anxious  to  hear  how  Frank  has  passed  at  the  last  examinations.  They 
have  been  very  satisfactory  indeed— second  in  Latin  and  first  in  English. 
His  master  was  speaking  to  me  about  him  yesterday,  and  said  that  his 
English  composition  was  the  best  production  from  a  lad  of  his  age  which 
he  had  ever  seen  in  this  seminary.  His  improvement  in  Latin  is  also 
remarkable,  and  his  steady  improvement  in  this  subject  will  depend  in  a 
great  measure  upon  a  cure  of  that  absent-mindedness  which  certainly,  at  the 
very  outset,  threatened  to  prove  a  great  obstacle  to  his  application  to  study. 
This,  I  am  happy  to  tell  you,  has  disappeared  in  a  great  measure,  and  in  a 
little  time  we  may  be  quite  sure  of  its  entire  disappearance." 

To  the  late  Monsignor  Corbishly  I  am  indebted  for  the  following  record 
of  the  place  Francis  held  in  the  compositions  set  three  times  a  year  :  — 

"  In  Latin  he  was  first  six  times,  second  three  times,  and  twice  he  was 
third.  The  lowest  place  was  6th,  except  when  he  composed  in  so-called 
Latin  verse,  when  he  got  23rd.  His  muse  could  not  get  going  in  a  dead 
language.  In  Greek  his  place  ran  from  2nd  to  10th.  In  French,  average 
place  about  8th.  In  English,  1st  sixteen  times  ;  of  his  Arithmetic,  Algebra, 
and  Geometry  the  less  said  the  better.  He  was  a  good,  quiet,  shy  lad. 
Physically,  a  weakling  :  he  had  a  halting  way  of  walking,  and  gave  the 
impression  that  physical  existence  would  be  rather  a  struggle  for  him.  He 
did  practically  nothing  at  the  games.  Ilaec  habeo  quae  dicam  de  nostro 
poeta  praeclarissimo." 

26 


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The  Greek  of  Dreams 

For  such  warlike  enterprises  in  prose  and  a  certain 
occasional  straightening  of  the  back  and  assumption  of 
soldierly  bearing  the  name  of  "Tommy"  was  some- 
times abandoned  for  "l'homme  militaire." 

Another  witness,  in  the  Ushaiu  Magazine  of  March 
1894,  remembers  Francis  on  one  occasion  himself 
speaking  his  composition,  but  it  is  said  by  some  that 
he  never  put  such  a  trial  upon  his  courage  : — 

"  During  his  later  years  at  College  his  literary  gifts  were  well 
known.  He  declaimed  some  of  his  own  compositions — written  in 
a  clear,  rich,  vigorous  prose — at  the  public  exhibitions  in  the  Hall 
for  the  '  speaking  playday.'  His  verse  we  never  heard,  except  a 
skit  in  Latin  rhyme,  bidding  farewell  to  work  before  the  vacation, 
and  beginning  : 

Nunc  relinquemus  in  oblivium 
Csesarem  et  Titum  Livium. 

We  have,  however,  a  vivid  recollection  of  him  as  he  was  accustomed 
to  come  into  the  Reading-room,  on  the  long  dim  half-playday  after- 
noons, with  a  thick  manuscript  book  under  his  arm,  and  there  sit 
reading  and  copying  poetry,  nervously  running  one  hand  through 
his  hair." 

While  Dr.  Whiteside  (later  Archbishop  of  Liverpool) 
was  Minor  Professor  at  the  College  he  had  charge  of 
Francis's  dormitory.  One  night  after  lights  were  out 
he  heard  the  sound  of  strictly  forbidden  talk.  Searching 
for  the  offender,  he  found  Francis  reciting  Latin  poetry 
in  his  sleep.  The  Minor  Professor  awakened  him  and 
told  him  he  was  disturbing  the  dormitory.  Ten  minutes 
later  he  heard  more  noise,  and  found  Francis,  again 
asleep,  reciting  Greek  poetry!  I  doubt  if  Francis's 
Greek,  save  in  dream  or  anecdote,  was  fluent  enough 
to  waken  his  fellows. 

The  habit  of  humorous  verse  was  already  on  him, 
and  argues  that  he  was  light-hearted  at  school,  even  as 
the  note-books,  filled  at  the  time  of  his  greatest  depres- 
sion in  after  years,  argue  that  he  never  wholly  lacked 

27 


The  Boy 

relief.  His  joke  showed  his  independence ;  he  was 
not  under  the  thumb  of  his  distresses.  He  could  put 
them  aside,  or  accept,  or  forget,  or  forbid,  or  do  to  them 
whatever  may  have  been  the  armouring  process. 

Of  all  the  essays,  in  verse  or  prose,  of  his  Ushaw  days, 
the  verses  aimed  at  an  invalid  master  had  caught  out 
of  the  future  the  most  characteristic  note.  I  can  hear 
him  say  his  "  Lamente  Forre  Stephanon  "  in  the  deep 
tremulous  voice  that  he  affected  for  reading,  and  it 
hardly  comes  amiss  from  the  mature  tongue  : — 

Come  listen  to  mie  roundelaie, 

Come  droppe  the  brinie  tear  with  me. 
Forre  Stephanon  is  gone  awaye, 
And  long  away  perchance  wille  be  ! 
Our  friendde  hee  is  sicke, 
Gone  to  takke  physicke, 
Al  in  the  infirmarie. 

Swart  was  hys  dresse  as  the  blacke,  blacke  nyghte 

Whenne  the  moon  dothe  not  lyghte  uppe  the  waye, 
And  hys  voice  was  hoarse  as  the  gruffe  Northe  winde 
Whenne  he  swirleth  the  snowe  awaye. 
Our  friendde  hee  is  sicke, 
Gone  to  takke  physicke, 
Al  in  the  infirmarie. 

Eyn  hee  hadde  lyke  to  a  hawke, 

Soothe  I  saye,  so  sharpe  was  hee 
That  hee  e'en  mought  see  you  talke 
Whenne  you  talkynge  did  not  bee. 
Our  friendde  hee  is'sick, 
Gone  to  takke  physicke, 
Al  in  the  infirmarie. 

We  ne'er  schalle  see  hys  lyke  agenne, 

We  ne'er  agenne  hys  lyke  schalle  see, 
Searche  amonge  al  Englyshe  menne, 
You  ne'er  will  fynde  the  lyke  of  hee. 
Our  friendde  hee  is  sicke, 
Gone  to  takke  physicke, 
Al  in  the  infirmarie. 
28 


The   First  Verses 

A  copy  of  the  verses  fell  into  the  hands  of  Stephanon, 
without  ill  effects ;  his  mighty  laugh  is  still  raised  when 
he  remembers  them.  The  resolve  to  be  a  poet  is  in 
some  of  the  college  verses  ;  the  word  has  not  been  made 
poetry,  but  the  spirit  is  willing  and  anxious.  "Yet,  my 
Soul,  we  have  a  treasure  not  the  banded  world  can 
take,"  was  the  stuff  to  fill  the  manuscript  book  he 
clutched  in  recreation  hours  : — 

Think,  my  Soul,  how  we  were  happy  with  it  in  the  days  of  yore, 
When  upon  the  golden  mountains  we  saw  throned  the  mighty 
Sun, 
When  the  gracious  Moon  at  night-time  taught  us  deep  and  mystic 
lore, 
And  the  holy,  wise  old  forests  spoke  to  us  and  us  alone. 

Yes,  I  loved  them  !    And  not  least  I  loved  to  look  on  Ocean's  face, 
When  he  lay  in  peace  sublime  and  evening's  shades  were  stealing 
on, 
When  his  child,  the  King  of  Light,  from  Heaven  stooped  to  his 
embrace, 
And  his  locks  were  tangled  with  the  golden  tresses  of  the  Sun. 

And  much  more  ;  in  that  last  he  is  feeling  his  way  toward 
the  line,  to  be  written  in  maturity,  "  Tangle  the  tresses 
of  a  phantom  wind."  He  was  already  on  nodding 
terms  with  nodding  laburnum  : — 

The  laden  laburnum  stoops 

In  clusters  gold  as  thy  hair, 
The  maiden  lily  droops 

The  fairest  where  all  are  fair, 
The  thick-massed  fuchsias  show 

In  red  and  in  white — thy  hue  ! 
In  a  pendant  cloud  they  spread  and  glow 

Of  crimson,  and  white,  and  blue, 
In  hanging  showers  they  droop  their  flowers 

Of  crimson  and  white,  and  crimson  and  blue. 

Pan  was  not  yet  done  to  death,  nor  did  Francis  know 
that  he,  of  all  poets,  would  most  searchingly  chase  the 

29 


The  Boy 

god  from  his  lairs,  and  give  over  the  forests  of  poetry 
to  Him  of  the  Rood,  proving 

the  Crucifix  may  be 
Carven  from  the  laurel-tree. 

The  schoolboy's  invocation  is  : — 

And  thou,  0  Pan,  whose  dwelling  must  be  sought 
Deep  in  some  vast  grown  forest,  where  the  trees 
Are  wet  with  cold  large  dew  drops  in  the  breeze, 
Where  hangs  dark  moss  in  rain-steeped  tresses  long, 
Aid  me,  0  aid,  to  body  forth  in  song 
A  scene  as  fair  as  thou  in  all  thy  days 
Hast  gazed  upon,  or  ever  yet  wilt  gaze. 

Of  Ushaw  walks,  another  recreation  fit  for  Francis, 
a  companion  writes  :  "  In  all  weathers  we  tramped  the 
roads,  and  it  must  have  been  at  these  times  (for  after 
he  left  college  he  saw  little  of  meadows  and  hedgerows), 
that  he  unconsciously  imbibed  his  wonderful  knowledge 
of  the  flowers  of  the  field." 

It  was  sowing-time  and  the  soil  rich,  but  an  observer, 
in  the  exact  sense,  Francis  never  was.  He  would  make 
any  layman  appear  a  botanist  with  easy  questions  about 
the  commonplaces  of  the  hedges,  and  a  flowered  dinner- 
table  in  London  always  kept  him  wondering,  fork  in  air, 
as  to  kinds  and  names.  On  the  other  hand,  he  was 
essentially  an  observer  :  let  him  see  but  one  sunset  and 
the  daily  mystery  of  that  going  down  would  companion 
him  for  a  life-time  ;  let  him  see  but  one  daisy,  and  all 
his  paths  would  be  strewn  with  white  and  gold.  He 
had  the  inner  eye,  which  when  it  lifts  heavy  lashes  lets 
in  immutable  memories. 

And  of  Religion  :  more  pressing  than  the  invitation 
to  the  northern  road  would  be  the  invitation  to  Ushaw' s 
Chapel.  His  lessons  in  ceremonial  were  not  the  least 
he  was  taught.  Eton  could  have  given  him  his  Latin, 
but  his  Liturgy  was  more  important.     His  singing-gown 

3o 


Thoughts  of  the  Priesthood 

was  a  vestment,  and  he  learnt  its  fashioning  at  college. 
He  learnt  the  hymns  of  the  Church  and  became  her 
hymn-writer ;  he  learnt  his  way  in  the  missal,  and  came 
to  write  his  meditation  in  "The  Hound  of  Heaven." 
A  priest,  who  was  his  schoolfellow,  writes  : 

"  No  Ushaw  man  need  be  told  how  eagerly  all,  both  young  and 
old,  hailed  the  coming  of  the  ist  of  May.  For  that  day,  in  the 
Seminary,  was  erected  a  colossal  altar  at  the  end  of  the  ambulacrum 
nearest  the  belfry,  fitted  and  adorned  by  loving  zeal.  Before  this, 
after  solemn  procession  from  St.  Aloysius',  with  lighted  tapers,  all 
assembled,  Professors  and  students,  and  sang  a  Marian  hymn.  In 
the  College  no  less  solemnity  was  observed.  At  a  quarter  past 
nine  the  whole  house,  from  President  downwards,  assembled  in 
the  ante-chapel  before  our  favourite  statue.  A  hymn,  selected 
and  practised  with  great  care,  was  sung  in  alternate  verses  by  the 
choir  in  harmony,  and  the  whole  house  in  unison.  '  Dignare  me 
laudare,  te,  Virgo  Sacrata,'  was  intoned  by  the  Cantor ;  '  Da 
mihi  virtutem  contra  hostes  tuos  '  thundered  back  the  whole  con- 
gregation ;  and  the  priest,  robed  already  for  Benediction,  sang 
the  prayer  '  Concede,  misericors  Deus,'  etc.  Singing  Our  Lady's 
Magnificat,  we  filed  into  St.  Cuthbert's,  and  then,  as  in  the  Seminary, 
Benediction  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament  followed.  For  thirty-one 
days,  excepting  Sundays  and  holy  days,  this  inspiring  ceremonial 
took  place — its  memory  can  never  be  effaced." 

Although  it  is  somewhere  affirmed  that  Francis  be- 
trayed no  singular  piety,  we  know  how  devout  was  his 
young  heart.  It  was  intended  for  him  that  he  should 
enter  the  Church,  and  he  studied  for  the  priesthood. 
Letters  written  to  his  parents  by  those  who  had  him 
under  observation  go  to  make  the  history  of  the  case ; 
on  September  6,  1871,  Father  Yatlock  wrote  : — 

"  I  am  sure,  dear  Mrs.  Thompson,  that  it  will  be  a  pleasure  and 
a  consolation  to  you  and  Dr.  Thompson  that  Frank  gives  the  greatest 
satisfaction  in  every  way  ;  and  I  sincerely  trust,  as  you  said  the 
other  evening,  that  he  will  become  one  day  a  good  and  holy  priest." 

But  at  the  last  his  ghostly  advisers  found  him  unfitted. 
They   held   his   absent-mindedness   to   be   too   grave  a 

31 


The  Boy 

disability,  and  in  his  nineteenth  year  he  was  advised  to 
relinquish  all  idea  of  the  priesthood.  In  June  1877  the 
President  wrote  a  letter  proving  the  good  will,  a  quality 
that  may  easily  collapse  before  a  silent,  strange,  evasive 
child,  which  was  felt  for  Francis. 
The  President  wrote  : — 

"  With  regard  to  Frank,  I  can  well  appreciate  the  regret  and 
disappointment  which  you  and  his  mother  must  feel.  Frank 
has  always  been  a  great  favourite  of  mine  ever  since  he  came  as 
a  child  to  the  Seminary.  He  has  always  been  a  remarkably  docile 
and  obedient  boy,  and  certainly  one  of  the  cleverest  boys  in  his 
class.  Still,  his  strong,  nervous  timidity  has  increased  to  such 
an  extent  that  I  have  been  most  reluctantly  compelled  to  concur 
in  the  opinion  of  his  Director  and  others  that  it  is  not  the  holy 
will  of  God  that  he  should  go  on  for  the  Priesthood.  It  is  only 
after  much  thought,  and  after  some  long  and  confidential  con- 
versations with  Frank  himself,  that  I  have  come  to  this  conclusion  : 
and  most  unwillingly,  for  I  feel,  as  I  said,  a  very  strong  regard 
and  affection  for  your  boy.  I  earnestly  pray  God  to  bless  him, 
and  to  enable  you  to  bear  for  His  sake  the  disappointment  this 
has  caused.  I  quite  agree  with  you  in  thinking  that  it  is  quite 
time  that  he  should  begin  to  prepare  for  some  other  career.  If 
he  can  shake  off  a  natural  indolence  which  has  always  been  an 
obstacle  with  him,  he  has  ability  to  succeed  in  any  career." 

Indolence  is  one  name  of  many  for  the  abstraction  of 
Francis's  mind  and  the  inactivities  of  his  body.  He  was 
not  of  the  stuff  to  "  break  ice  in  his  basin  by  candle- 
light," and  no  doves  fluttered  against  his  lodging  window 
to  wake  him  in  summer,  but  he  was  not  indolent  in  the 
struggle  against  indolence.  Not  a  life-time  of  mornings 
spent  in  bed  killed  the  desire  to  be  up  and  doing.  In  the 
trembling  hand  of  his  last  months  he  wrote  out  in  big 
capitals  on  pages  torn  from  exercise  books  such  texts  as 
were  calculated  to  frighten  him  into  his  clothes.  "Thou 
wilt  not  lie  a-bed  when  the  last  trump  blows";  "Thy 
sleep  with  the  worms  will  be  long  enough,"  and  so  on. 
They  were  ineffectual.     His  was  a  long  series  of  broken 

32 


The  Disappointment 

trysts — trysts  with  the  sunrise,  trysts  with  Sunday  mass, 
obligatory  but  impossible  ;  trysts  with  friends.  Whether 
it  was  indolence  or,  as  he  explained  it,  an  insurmountable 
series  of  detaining  accidents,  it  is  certain  that  he,  captain 
of  his  soul,  was  not  captain  of  his  hours.  They  played 
him  false  at  every  stroke  of  the  clock,  mutinied  with  such 
cunning  that  he  would  keep  an  appointment  in  all  good 
faith  six  hours  after  it  was  past.  Dismayed,  he  would 
emerge  from  his  room  upon  a  household  preparing  for 
dinner,  when  he  had  lain  listening  to  sounds  he  thought 
betokened  breakfast.  He  was  always  behindhand  with 
punctual  eve,  and  in  trouble  with  strict  noon. 

And  yet  there  were  the  makings  of  the  parish  priest,  or 
the  hint  of  them,  in  his  demeanour.  "  Is  that  the  Frank 
Thompson  I  quarrelled  about  with  my  neighbouring 
bishop  ? "  asked  Cardinal  Vaughan  (then  Bishop  of 
Salford)  when  many  years  later  he  heard  the  name  of 
the  poet  from  my  father  ;  "  each  of  us  wanted  him  for 
his  own  diocese." 

The  ritual  of  the  Church  ordered  his  unorderly  life ; 
he  was  priestly  in  that  he  preached  her  faith  and 
practised  her  austerities.  Nature  he  ignored  till  she 
spoke  the  language  of  religion  ;  and  he,  though  secretly 
much  engrossed  in  his  own  spiritual  welfare,  was,  priest- 
like, audible  at  his  prayers — or  poetry.  His  muse  was 
obedient  and  circumspect  as  the  voice  that  proclaims 
the  rubrics.  He  was  often  merely  in  Roman  orders,  so 
to  say,  when  the  critics  accused  him  of  breaking  the 
laws  of  English  and  common-sense.  At  the  same  time 
he  failed  signally  in  the  practical  service  of  his  fellows. 
His  rhymes  were  the  only  alms  he  gave  ;  but  annoyances 
he  seemed  at  times  to  distribute  as  lavishly  as  St. 
Anthony  his  loaves. 

Having  done  no  wrong,  he  bore  home  a  disappoint- 
ment for  his  parents.  It  is  no  light  thing  to  have  a  son, 
destined  for  the  sheltered  rallying-place  of  the  Church, 
thrust  back  into  a  world  he  had  been  well  rid  of.     Nor 

33  C 


The   Boy 

did  his  indifference  as  to  his  prospects  (the  disguise, 
perhaps,  of  his  own  disappointment)  inspire  them  with 
confidence.  I  have  already  mentioned  that  it  is  thought 
by  many  persons  well-versed  in  the  spiritual  affairs  of 
the  family  that  his  failure  in  the  Seminary  was  with  him 
an  acute  and  lasting  grief. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  was  from  his  childhood  a 
prophet  in  his  own  strange  land,  and  it  is  probable  that 
while  his  family  were  solicitous  for  him  to  enter  the 
Church,  he  recognised  the  justice  of  his  confessor's 
opinion.  The  "A.M.D.G."  inscribed  in  his  exercise 
books  was  none  the  less  the  perfect  dedication.  "To 
the  Greater  Glory  of  God "  was  already  his  pen's 
motto.  He  saw  "  all  the  world  for  cell,"  and  he  made 
much  of  the  pains  he  thought  necessary  for  his  poetry. 


34 


fraiict.i  ,J/i(uii/.).)rti 


CHAPTER   III:    MANCHESTER   AND 
MEDICINE 

An  awed,  awkward  youth,  Francis  had  yet,  before  the 
age  of  eighteen,  experience  enough  to  know  how  futile  for 
him  was  the  study  of  medicine.  A  career  in  medicine, 
a  career  in  anything,  made  no  appeal  to  one  who  saw 
himself  a  man  spoiled  for  the  world.  Home  from  his 
daily  lectures,  he  would,  not  seldom,  shut  himself  up  in 
his  room.  His  cloister  was  solitude,  and  in  that  painful 
sanctuary  he  hid  himself  from  success.  He  made  a  pre- 
tence of  study,  and  for  six  years  was  a  medical  student. 

He  had  been  seven  years  at  Ushaw  when  he  left  in 
July  1877.  The  photographs  of  the  time  show  him  to 
have  arrived  at  the  most  robust  and  perhaps  most 
normal  period  of  his  life.  But  awaiting  him  at  home 
were  the  traps  of  personality.  There  the  opportunity 
to  be  himself  set  on  foot  and  gave  courage  to  all  the 
essential  peculiarities  of  his  character.  If  he  had  evaded 
at  Ushaw  the  claims  of  the  community,  he  now  evaded 
them  much  more.  Although  he  resumed  his  play  and 
make-believe  with  his  sisters,  he  was  growing  further 
and  further  apart  from  a  good  understanding  with  any 
of  his  fellow-creatures.  Holding  himself  little  bounden 
to  his  duties,  he  soon  started  on  a  career  of  evasion  and 
silence.  After  a  pause  of  some  more  months  he  was 
examined,  and  passed  with  distinction  in  Greek,  for 
admission  as  a  student  of  medicine  to  Owens  College. 
For  six  years  he  studied  or  attempted  to  study  in  Man- 
chester, making  the  journey  from  Ashton-under-Lyne 
under  the  compulsion  of  the  family  eye.  But  once  round 
the  corner  he  was  safe  from  the  too  strict  inquiry  by  a 

35 


Manchester  and   Medicine 

father  never  stern.  The  hours  of  his  actual  attendance 
at  lectures  were  comparatively  few.  "  I  hated  my 
scientific  and  medical  studies,  and  learned  them  badly. 
Now  even  that  bad  and  reluctant  knowledge  has  grown 
priceless  to  me,"  he  wrote  in  after  life. 

The  Manchester  of  his  studies  had  little  hold  of  him,  and 
keeps  few  memories  of  him.  In  the  wide  but  mean  street 
leading  to  Owens  College  you  may,  it  is  true,  picture 
him  making  a  late  and  lingering  way  to  work,  or  entering 
the  cook-shops  which  even  then  had  initiated  him  in 
the  consumption  of  bad  food  (but  he  long  remembered 
the  excellence  of  one  underground  restaurant  for  modest 
commercial  classes),  or  nervously  awaiting  the  offer  of 
the  bookseller  for  some  volume  superfluous  to  a  truant 
student's  needs.  The  thoroughfare  is  so  busy  as  to 
disregard  the  abstracted  walk  and  expression  of  an 
eccentric  wayfarer.  Francis  soon  learned  the  art  of 
being  lonely  in  a  multitude,  and  would  only  occasionally 
perceive  one  of  the  passers  who  turned  and  looked  after 
him.  Boys  provoked  to  jeer  at  him  he  met  to  his  own 
satisfaction,  sometimes  with  a  complete  disregard,  some- 
times with  a  threatening  show  of  anger.  He  would  con- 
gratulate himself  upon  his  tactics,  not  knowing  that  he, 
a  young  man,  was  more  timid  and  abashed  than  any 
seven-year-old  rough  of  the  pavement.  The  college 
building,  oppressive  and  awesome  in  its  arches,  halls, 
and  corridors,  is  difficult  to  reconcile  with  the  timidity 
with  which  Francis  faced  it.  Your  footsteps  "hullo!" 
at  you  in  the  passages,  and  must  ring  with  self  assurance 
or  with  carelessness  if  they  are  not  to  echo  and  ex- 
aggerate your  doubtful  mood.  Laughter,  the  ungentle 
laughter  of  medical  students — whither,  asked  Stevenson, 
go  all  unpleasant  medical  students,  whence  come  all 
worthy  doctors  ? — swings  down  on  you  or  bars  you 
from  a  corner  that  you  must  needs  pass.  Among  the 
sheltering  cases  of  the  deserted  museum  there  is  more 
room    for    the   would-be   solitary.      Silent  mineralogies, 

36 


The   Doctor's  Son 

fragments,  fossils,  tell  the  poet  more  than  the  boisterous 
tongues  of  the  young  men.  Yorkshire  delivered  up  to 
the  museum  a  vast  saurian  and  other  creatures  of  the 
past  of  whom  we  hear  in  the  "  Anthem  of  Earth." 

Those  were  years  of  anything  but  the  making  of  a 
doctor.  To  have  conformed  so  little  to  the  style  of  the 
medical  student  promised  little  for  the  expected  practi- 
tioner. He  would  even  leave  his  father's  reputable 
doorstep  with  untied  laces,  dragging  their  length  on  the 
pavement  past  the  windows  of  curious  and  critical 
neighbours.  He  did  not  work,  and  his  idleness  was  all 
unlike  the  idleness  proper  to  his  class.  He  read  poetry 
in  the  public  library.  One  sort  of  idleness,  an  idleness 
that  gave  business  to  his  thoughts  for  all  his  life,  took 
him  to  the  museums  and  galleries.  In  an  essay  of  the 
'nineties  he  remembers 

"The  statue  which  thralled  my  youth  in  a  passion 
such  as  feminine  mortality  was  skill-less  to  instigate. 
Nor  at  this  let  any  boggle ;  for  she  was  a  goddess. 
Statue  I  have  called  her  ;  but  indeed  she  was  a  bust,  a 
head,  a  face — and  who  that  saw  that  face  could  have 
thought  to  regard  further  ?  She  stood  nameless  in  the 
gallery  of  sculptural  casts  which  she  strangely  deigned 
to  inhabit ;  but  I  have  since  learned  that  men  call  her 
the  Vatican  Melpomene.  Rightly  stood  she  nameless, 
for  Melpomene  she  never  was  :  never  went  words  of 
hers  from  bronzed  lyre  in  tragic  order  ;  never  through 
her  dispelled  lips  moaned  any  syllables  of  woe.  Rather, 
with  her  leaf-twined  locks,  she  seems  some  strayed 
Bacchante,  indissolubly  filmed  in  secular  reverie.  The 
expression  which  gave  her  divinity  resistless  I  have 
always  suspected  for  an  accident  of  the  cast ;  since 
in  frequent  engravings  of  her  prototype  I  never  met 
any  such  aspect.  The  secret  of  this  indecipherable 
significance,  1  slowly  discerned,  lurked  in  the  singularly 
diverse  set  of  the  two  corners  of  the  mouth  ;  so  that  her 
profile  wholly  shifted  its  meaning  according  as  it  was 

37 


Manchester  and  Medicine 

viewed  from  the  right  or  left.  In  one  corner  of  her 
mouth  the  little  languorous  firstling  of  a  smile  had  gone  to 
sleep  ;  as  if  she  had  fallen  a-dream,  and  forgotten  that 
it  was  there.  The  other  had  drooped,  as  of  its  own 
listless  weight,  into  a  something  which  guessed  at 
sadness ;  guessed,  but  so  as  indolent  lids  are  easily 
grieved  by  the  prick  of  the  slate-blue  dawn.  And  on 
the  full  countenance  these  two  expressions  blended 
to  a  single  expression  inexpressible  ;  as  if  pensiveness 
had  played  the  Maenad,  and  now  her  arms  grew 
heavy  under  the  cymbals.  Thither  each  evening,  as 
twilight  fell,  I  stole  to  meditate  and  worship  the 
baffling  mysteries  of  her  meaning  :  as  twilight  fell,  and 
the  blank  noon  surceased  arrest  upon  her  life,  and  in 
the  vaguening  countenance  the  eyes  broke  out  from 
their  day-long  ambuscade.  Eyes  of  violet  blue,  drowsed- 
amorous,  which  surveyed  me  not,  but  looked  ever  beyond, 
where  a  spell  enfixed  them, 

Waiting  for  something,  not  for  me. 

And  I  was  content.  Content ;  for  by  such  tenure  of 
unnoticedness  I  knew  that  I  held  my  privilege  to  worship  : 
had  she  beheld  me,  she  would  have  denied,  have  con- 
temned my  gaze.  Between  us,  now,  are  years  and  tears  ; 
but  the  years  waste  her  not,  and  the  tears  wet  her  not ; 
neither  misses  she  me  or  any  man.  There,  I  think,  she 
is  standing  yet ;  there,  I  think,  she  will  stand  for  ever  : 
the  divinity  of  an  accident,  awaiting  a  divine  thing 
impossible,  which  can  never  come  to  her,  and  she  knows 
this  not.  For  I  reject  the  vain  fable  that  the  ambrosial 
creature  is  really  an  unspiritual  compound  of  lime, 
which  the  gross  ignorant  call  plaster  of  Paris.  If  Paris 
indeed  had  to  do  with  her,  it  was  he  of  Ida.  And  for 
him,  perchance,  she  waits." 

Here  already  was  the  artist,  the  actor  in  unreal  realities. 
Already  he  had  been  thrice  in  love — with  the  heroines 
of  Selous'  Shakespeare,  with  a  doll,  with  a  statue. 

38 


Cricket 

Before  he  knew  that  his  lot  was  to  be  more  chipped 
and  filled  with  blanks  than  the  ladies  of  the  Parthenon, 
he  had  set  about  furnishing  the  gaps  with  complementing 
fragments  of  fancy.  He  was  winning  consolation  prizes 
before  any  races  had  been  lost.  "  No  youth  expects  to 
get  a  heroine  of  romance  for  a  mistress,"  he  avers,  but 
I  doubt  if  many  youths  court  woodcut  and  wax  on 
that  account.  They  look  for  their  heroines  in  living 
replica ;  Francis,  the  artist,  went  to  book  and  toy-box. 
And  he  went  walking  often  to  the  accompaniment  of  his 
father's  talk  of  buds,  and  trees,  and  flowers.  Mr.  J. 
Saxon  Mills,  his  neighbour,  writes  : — 

"  Some  few  may  remember  him  when,  a  good  many  years  ago, 
he  used  to  take  his  walks  up  Stalybridge  Road,  and  in  the  semi- 
rural  outskirts  of  Ashton.  They  will  recall  the  quick  short  step,  the 
sudden  and  apparently  causeless  hesitation  or  full  stop,  then  the 
old  quick  pace  again,  the  continued  muttered  soliloquy,  the  frail 
and  slight  figure.  Such  was  the  poet  during  his  studentship  at 
Owens  College.  An  intellectual  temperament  less  adapted  to  the 
career  of  a  doctor  and  surgeon  could  not  be  imagined.  To  such 
a  profession,  however,  Frank  was  destined  by  a  careful  and  prac- 
tical father." 

Besides  the  public  galleries,  the  libraries,  and  the 
roads,  he  had  the  cricket-field.  From  the  writing  of 
his  own  and  his  sister's  heroes'  scores  upon  the  sands 
at  Colwyn  Bay,  he  and  she  had  taken  to  back-garden 
practice  of  the  game.  At  school  he  had  not  played,  but 
neither  had  he  lost  his  enthusiasm  there.  Returning 
from  Ushaw,  he  would,  his  sister  tells  me,  go  to  a  friend's 
garden  and  play  for  hours  by  himself,  and  bowl  for 
hours  at  the  net,  which  meant  that  he  had,  after  each 
delivery,  to  retrieve  his  own  ball.  He  was  much  at  the 
Old  Trafford  ground,  and  there  he  stored  memories  that 
would  topple  out  one  over  another  in  his  talk  at  the  end 
of  his  life.  The  most  historic  of  the  matches  he  wit- 
nessed was  that  between  Lancashire  and  Gloucestershire 
in  1878.     His  sister  remembers  it,  and  he  celebrates  it 

39 


Manchester  and  Medicine 

in  the  following  poem,  written  in  the  clear  but  tragic 
light  that  his  devotion  to  the  game  shed  upon  the  distant 
scene  of  whites  and  greens  : — 

It  is  little  I  repair  to  the  matches  of  the  Southron  folk, 

Though  my  own  red  roses  there  may  blow  ; 
It  is  little  I  repair  to  the  matches  of  the  Southron  folk, 

Though  the  red  roses  crest  the  caps,  I  know. 
For  the  field  is  full  of  shades  as  I  near  the  shadowy  coast, 
And  a  ghostly  batsman  plays  to  the  bowling  of  a  ghost, 
And  I  look  through  my  tears  on  a  soundless-clapping  host 

As  the  run-stealers  flicker  to  and  fro, 
To  and  fro  : — 

0  my  Hornby  and  my  Barlow  long  ago  ! 

It  is  Glo'ster  coming  North,  the  irresistible, 

The  Shire  of  the  Graces,  long  ago  ! 
It  is  Gloucestershire  up  North,  the  irresistible, 

And  new-risen  Lancashire  the  foe  ! 
A  Shire  so  young  that  has  scarce  impressed  its  traces, 
Ah,  how  shall  it  stand  before  all  resistless  Graces  ? 
0,  little  red  rose,  their  bats  are  as  maces 

To  beat  thee  down,  this  summer  long  ago  ! 

This  day  of  seventy-eight  they  are  come  up  North  against  thee, 

This  day  of  seventy-eight,  long  ago  ! 
The  champion  of  the  centuries,  he  cometh  up  against  thee, 

With  his  brethren,  every  one  a  famous  foe  ! 
The  long-whiskered  Doctor,  that  laugheth  rules  to  scorn, 
While  the  bowler,  pitched  against  him,  bans  the  day  that  he 

was  born  ; 
And  G.  F.  with  his  science  makes  the  fairest  length  forlorn  ; 

They  are  come  from  the  West  to  work  thee  woe  ! 

Nor  did  Francis's  cloistered  sister  forget.  On  reading 
Mr.  E.  V.  Lucas's  criticisms  on  her  brother's  cricket  verses 
{Cornhill Magazine,  1907)  she  wrote  to  me  : — "  The  article 
stirred  up  many  old  memories,  thank  God.  I  can 
remember  seven  names  out  of  the  Lancashire  XI  of  that 
match."  For  thirty  years  she  remembered  the  seven 
jolly  cricketers,  with  the  seven  joyful  mysteries  of  the 
Rosary,  to  keep  her  young. 

40 


The   Red   Rose 

Francis  in  1900  could  draw  up  the  whole  of  the 
Lanes.  XI  and  name  eight  of  the  other  XI,  with  a  guess 
at  a  ninth  man.  Mr.  E.  V.  Lucas  knows  all  about  the 
match.  "  It  was  an  historic  contest,  for  the  two  counties 
had  never  met  before,  and  was  played  on  July  25,  26,  27, 
1878,  when  the  poet  was  eighteen.  The  fame  of  the 
Graces  was  such  that  16,000  people  were  present  on  the 
Saturday,  the  third  day — of  whom,  by  the  way,  2000  did 
not  pay  but  took  the  ground  by  storm.  The  result  was 
a  draw  a  little  in  Lancashire's  favour.  It  was  eminently 
Hornby's  and  Barlow's  match.  In  the  first  innings  the 
amateur  made  only  five,  but  Barlow  went  right  through 
it,  his  wicket  falling  last  for  40.  In  the  second  innings 
Hornby  was  at  his  best,  making  with  incredible  dash  100 
out  of  156  while  he  was  in,  Barlow  supporting  him  while 
he  made  eighty  of  them.  The  note-book  in  which  these 
verses  are  written  contains  numberless  variations  upon 
several  of  the  lines.  'O  my  Hornby  and  my  Barlow 
long  ago  ! '  becomes  in  one  case  '  O  my  Monkey  and 
Stone-Waller  long  ago  ! '  Monkey  was,  of  course,  Mr. 
Hornby's  nickname.  'First  he  runs  you  out  of  breath,' 
said  the  professional,  possibly  Barlow  himself,  'then  he 
runs  you  out,  and  then  he  gives  you  a  sovereign  !  '  A 
brave  summary ! " 

Other  Lancashire  heroes  and  other  worship  were  here 
recorded  : — 

Sons,  who  have  sucked  stern  nature  forth 
From  the  milk  of  our  firm-breasted  north  ! 
Stubborn  and  stark,  in  whatever  field, 
Stand,  Sons  of  the  Red  Rose,  who  may  not  yield  ! 

Gone  is  Pattison's  lovely  style, 
Not  the  name  of  him  lingers  awhile. 

0  Lancashire  Red  Rose,  0  Lancashire  Red  Rose  ! 

The  men  who  fostered  thee,  no  man  knows. 

Many  bow  to  thy  present  shows, 

But  greater  far  have  I  seen  thee,  my  Rose  ! 

41 


Manchester  and  Medicine 

Thy  batting  Steels,  D.  G.,  H.  B., 
Dost  thou  forget  ?    And  him,  A.  G., 
Bat  superb,  of  slows  the  prince, 
Father  of  all  slow  bowlers  since  ? 

Yet,  though  Sugg,  Eccles,  Ward,  Tyldesley  play 
The  part  of  a  great,  a  vanished  day, 
By  this  may  ye  know,  and  long  may  ye  know, 
Our  Rose  ;  it  is  greatest  when  hope  is  low. 

The  Lancashire  Red  Rose,  0  the  Lancashire  Red  Rose  ! 
We  love  the  hue  on  her  cheek  that  shows  : 
And  it  never  shall  blanch,  come  the  world  as  foes, 
For  dipt  in  our  hearts  is  the  Lancashire  Red  Rose  ! 

Vernon  Royle,  says  the  sister,  was  one  of  them  ;  nor 
did  the  brother  forget  him.  I  quote  from  his  review  of 
Ranjitsinhji's  Jubilee  Book  of  Cricket  {The  Academy, 
September  4,  1897)  : — 

'"From  what  one  hears/  Prince  Ranjitsinhji  says, 
'Vernon  Royle  must  have  been  a  magnificent  fielder.' 
He  was.  A  ball  for  which  hardly  another  cover-point 
would  think  of  trying  he  flashed  upon,  and  with  a  single 
action  stopped  it  and  returned  it  to  the  wicket.  So 
placed  that  only  a  single  stump  was  visible  to  him,  he 
would  throw  that  down  with  unfailing  accuracy,  and 
without  the  slightest  pause  for  aim.  One  of  the  members 
of  the  Australian  team  in  Royle's  era,  playing  against 
Lancashire,  shaped  to  start  for  a  hit  wide  of  cover-point. 
'No,  no!'  cried  his  partner,  'the  policeman  is  there!' 
There  were  no  short  runs  anywhere  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  Royle.  He  simply  terrorised  the  batsmen.  In  addition 
to  his  swiftness  and  sureness,  his  style  was  a  miracle  of 
grace.  Slender  and  symmetrical,  he  moved  with  the 
lightness  of  a  young  roe,  the  flexuous  elegance  of  a 
leopard.  ...  To  be  a  fielder  like  Vernon  Royle  is  as 
much  worth  any  youth's  endeavours  as  to  be  a  batsman 
like  Ranjitsinhji  or  a  bowler  like  Richardson." 

42 


Old  Trafford 

The  cricket  verses  are  all  lamentations  for  the  dead.  I 
doubt  if  he  was  ever  so  happy  as  when  mourning  his 
heroes.  To  decorate  his  boyish  memories  of  the  de- 
parted with  rhymed  requiems  and  mature  rhythms  was 
one  of  his  few  luxuries.  The  note-books  were  full  of 
fragments  ;  — 

He  that  flashed  from  wicket  to  wicket 

Like  flash  of  a  lighted  powder-train  ; 
Where  is  that  thunderbolt  of  cricket  ? 

And  where  are  the  peers  of  Charlemain  ? 
With  this,  with  this,  for  an  undersong, — 

"  But  where  are  the  peers  of  Charlemain  ?  " 

He  had  projects  beyond  cricket  verses  and  reviewing. 
At  a  late  London  period  he  proposed  to  write  his 
cricket  memories,  gravely  justifying  his  connoisseurship 
and  his  qualifications  : — 

"  For  several  years,  living  within  distance  of  the  O.  T. 
Ground,  where  successively  played  each  year  the  chief 
cricketers  of  England,  where  the  chief  cricketers  of 
Australia  played  in  their  periodic  visits,  and  where  one 
of  the  three  Australian  test-matches  was  latterly  decided, 
I  saw  all  the  great  cricketers  of  that  day,  and  it  was  a 
very  rich  day.  Naturally,  I  have  a  few  things  to  say 
about  cricket  now  and  then.  .  .  .  Thousands  of  others 
have  the  same  basis,  but  it  happens  that  I  have  what  they 
have  not — some  trained  faculty  of  expression.  The  few 
remarks  that  follow  carefully  avoid  the  province  of 
purely  technical  criticism,  which  is  rightly  engrossed  by 
those  who  are  themselves  great  cricketers.  The  only 
technical  criticism  worth  having  in  poetry  is  that  of 
poets,  and  the  same  is  true  of  cricket." 

Of  the  true  historian  of  the  game  he  writes  :  "  Nyren — 
at  once  the  Herodotus  and  Homer  of  cricket — an  epic 
writer  if  ever  there  was  one." 

His    Lancastrian  ardour  had  suffered  no  diminution 

43 


Manchester  and   Medicine 

when,  after  an  absence  from  the  north  and  from  cricket 
fields  of  twenty  years,  he  and  I  talked  cricket.  There 
was  a  well-established  understanding  between  us  that 
he  was  for  the  red  rose,  I  for  the  white.  It  was  make- 
believe,  but  served  during  many  seasons  and  in  many 
letters.  More  chivalrous  than  a  knight  of  Arthur  in 
rivalry  he  would  write  thus  : — 

"  Well  done,  Yorkshire !  your  county  is  coming  up 
hand  over  hand  I  see  by  the  placards.  I  said  how  it 
would  be,  so  I  am  not  surprised.  Our  tail  is  not  plucky. 
Love  to  all,  dear  Ev.  F.  T." 

That  was  about  a  match  lost  by  Lancashire  in 
1905.  The  year  before,  Thompson's  fellow-lodgers,  with 
an  eye  to  comedy  as  much  as  to  cricket,  had  persuaded 
him  to  meet  them  at  a  cricket-net  near  Wormwood 
Scrubbs.  Of  seven  men  and  boys  who  met  there,  six 
had  made  some  compromise  with  the  conventional 
costume  of  the  game ;  they  could  boast  a  flannelled  leg, 
soft  collar,  or  at  least  a  stud  unfastened  in  deference  to 
a  splendid  sun  ;  and  they  were  active,  and  their  shadows 
on  the  green  quite  playful.  But  he  was  dingy  from  boot 
laces  to  hat  band.  Timorously  excited  and  wonderfully 
intent  upon  all  the  preparations,  he  stiffly  waited  his  turn 
to  bat.  When  it  came  he  remembered  he  had  no  pads 
on  and  stayed  to  strap  them  with  fingers  so  weak  that 
they  were  hurt  by  the  buckle  with  which  they  fumbled. 
And  then,  supremely  grave,  he  batted  for  the  first  time 
since  he  had  faced  his  sister's  bowling  on  the  sands  of 
Colwyn  Bay. 

I  was  never  at  Lord's  or  the  Oval  with  him,  in 
spite  of  many  plans,  and  he  himself  passed  the  turn- 
stile on  very  few  occasions.  But  he  was  always  thinking 
of  the  cricket  he  would  see,  and  always  for  some  good 
reason  postponing  the  day,  as  for  instance  in  a  note 
written  in  1905  : — 

44 


Lord's 

"  I  did  not  go  to  Lord's.  Could  not  get  there  before 
lunch  ;  and  getting  a  paper  at  Baker  Street  saw  Lancas- 
shire  had  collapsed  and  Middlesex  were  in  again.  So 
turned  back  without  getting  my  ticket — luckily  kept  from 
another  disappointing  day." 

Mr.  E.  V.  Lucas  has  written  of  the  incongruity  of 
Thompson's  appearance  and  his  enthusiasm  : — 

"  If  ever  a  figure  seemed  to  say,  '  Take  me  anywhere  in  the 
world  so  long  as  it  is  not  to  a  cricket  match,'  that  figure  was 
Francis  Thompson's.  And  his  eye  supported  it.  His  eye  had  no 
brightness  :  it  swung  laboriously  upon  its  object ;  whereas  the 
enthusiasts  of  St.  John's  Wood  dart  their  glances  like  birds.  But 
Francis  Thompson  was  born  to  baffle  the  glib  inference." 

It  was  his  unpromising  figure  that,  making  its  way 
late  at  night  from  Granville  Place  to  Brondesbury,  would 
pass  through  St.  John's  Wood  and  be  stirred  with 
thoughts  of  the  game.  Had  his  mutterings  reached  the 
ear  of  the  policeman  on  the  Lord's  beat,  it  would  have 
been  known  that  they  were  not  always  so  tragically  en- 
gendered as  his  mien  suggested.  The  following  lines  he 
wrote  out  for  me  and  posted  in  the  early  hours  after 
such  a  journey : — 

The  little  Red  Rose  shall  be  pale  at  last. 

What  made  it  red  but  the  June  Wind's  sigh  ? 
And  Brearley's  ball  that  he  bowls  so  fast  ? 

It  shall  sink  in  the  dust  of  the  late  July  ! 

The  pride  of  the  North  shall  droop  at  last ; 

What  made  her  proud  but  the  Tyl-des-lie  ? 
An  Austral  ball  shall  be  bowled  full  fast, 

And  baffle  his  bat  and  pass  it  by. 

The  Rose  once  wounded  shall  snap  at  last. 

The  Rose  long  bleeding  it  shall  not  die. 
This  song  is  secret.     Mine  ear  it  passed 

In  a  wind  from  the  field  of  Le-bone-Marie. 

45 


Manchester  and  Medicine 

At  the  end  of  two  years  at  Owens  College  he  went  to 
London  for  the  first  time,  staying  with  his  cousin,  Mr. 
May,  in  Tregunter  Road,  Fulham.1  The  trials  of  ex- 
amination were  partly  compensated  for  by  a  visit  to  the 
opera. 

In  1879  Francis  fell  ill,  and  did  not  recover  until  after 
a  long  bout  of  fever.  He  looks  stricken  and  thin  in 
photographs  taken  at  his  recovery,  and  it  is  probably  at 
this  time  that  he  first  tasted  laudanum.  It  was  at  this 
time  too,  during  his  early  courses  at  Owens  College, 
that  Mrs.  Thompson,  without  any  known  cause  or 
purpose,  gave  her  son  a  copy  of  The  Confessions  of  an 
English  Opium  Eater?  It  was  a  last  gift,  for  she  died 
December  19,  1880.  Apart  from  the  immediate  conse- 
quences of  this  momentous  introduction,  fraught  with 
suggestions  and  sympathies  for  which  there  was  a 
gaping  readiness  in  the  young  man,  it  greatly  serves  in 
the  understanding  of  the  opium-eater  in  general,  of  the 
Manchester  opium-eater  in  particular,  and  of  Francis 
Thompson,  to  make  or  renew  acquaintance  with  de 
Quincey.  Indeed  if  there  is  one  favour  that  must  be 
asked  by  the  biographer  of  Francis  Thompson,  it  is  that 
his  readers  should  also  be  readers  of  the  Confessions, 
for,  without  the  mighty  initiation  of  that  masterly  prose, 
the  gateways  into  the  strange  and  tortuous  landscape  of 
dreams  can  hardly  be  forced,  nor  half  the  thickets  and 
valleys  be  conquered,  of  the  poet's  intellectual  history. 


1  It  pleases  the  idle  mind  of  the  present  writer  to  find  that  Francis  visited 
Tregunter  Road  when  my  mother,  who  was  years  later  to  be  the  lady  of  "  Love 
in  Dian's  Lap,"  was  staying  there,  unknown  to  him. 

2  His  uncle,  Edward  Healy  Thompson,  afterwards  remembered  that 
The  Opium  Eater  was  his  favourite  book  at  home  :  "  We  had  often  said  his 
experiences  would  surpass  those  of  de  Quincey." 

At  the  same  time  the  family  noted  other  influences  ;  it  was  a  tradition  of 
theirs  that  "On  the  3rd  Sunday  of  September,  1885,  Fr.  Richardson  ol  St. 
Mary's,  Ashton-under  Lyne,  delivered  a  sermon  on  '  Our  Lady  of  Sorrows,' 
which,  Francis  hearing,  was  the  subject  of  his  meditation,  and,  two  years  later, 
of  his  poem  'The  Passion  of  Mary.'  It  is  thought  that  he  did  not  make  any 
notes  on  the  sermon  in  church,  but  in  the  drawing-room  at  home  in  Stamford 
Street  he  made  use  that  same  night  of  pencil  and  paper." 

46 


A  de  Quincey  Parallel 

As  a  sight  of  the  pictures  of  Tintoretto  would  serve  to 
make  known,  to  one  entirely  ignorant  of  the  style,  the 
possibilities  and  achievements  of  the  Venetian  School ; 
would  serve  to  make  known,  not  Titian,  but  the  possi- 
bility of  a  Titian,  so  the  style  of  de  Quincey,  the  habit 
of  his  mind,  the  manner  of  his  confessing,  his  conceal- 
ments and  sincerities,  his  association  of  passion  and 
idleness,  his  fretfulness  and  his  habit  of  presaging  dole, 
his  manner  of  complaining  of  being  cold  a-bed,  his 
bulletins,  his  conscious  style  and  repetitions,  serve  to 
bring  the  personality  of  Thompson  to  the  memory  of 
those  who  knew  him  and  into  the  ken  of  those  who  did 
not.  For  the  family  likeness,  for  the  school  manner, 
there  are  passages,  too,  in  the  history  of  Coleridge  that 
will  be  found  suggestive  and  explanatory.  In  knowing 
these  cousins  of  the  habit,  you  come,  as  you  cannot 
come  by  any  single  and  uncorroborated  experience,  into 
very  convincing  touch  with  him  whom  you  are  seeking. 
If,  apart  from  the  special  significance  of  Francis's  com- 
munion with  de  Quincey,  these  two  are  linked,  and  in 
them  the  family  likeness  is  apparent,  what  of  the  like- 
ness and  the  linking  when  we  find  how  strong  was  the 
allegiance  sworn  by  Francis  to  the  spirit  of  de  Quincey ; 
when  we  track  allusions  and  words  and  mannerisms 
in  the  "Anthem  of  Earth"  back  to  the  Confessions; 
when  coincidence  of  actualities  as  well  as  the  coinci- 
dence of  intellect,  such  as  the  two  flights  from  Man- 
chester and  the  two  lives  in  the  streets  of  London, 
clashed  upon  the  attention  of  the  young  man  who 
was  withdrawn  from  the  companionship  of  contem- 
poraries ? 

De  Quincey,  like  Francis,  had  spent  much  time  in  the 
Manchester  library.  There  both  made  their  vocabularies 
robust  and  rare  from  the  same  Elizabethans,  both 
fattened  to  the  marrow  the  bones  of  their  English  from 
Sir  Thomas  Browne.  And  both  stumbled  headlong 
down    a   precipice   of   despondency.     De  Quincey  has 

47 


Manchester  and  Medicine 

said  many  things  on  his  own  behalf,  in  that  despondency 
and  in  the  recourse  to  opium,  that  may  well  be  said 
on  Thompson's. 

It  happened  as  if  in  giving  Francis  the  Confessions 
Mrs.  Thompson  had  found  for  him  a  guardian,  a  spokes- 
man, as  if  she  had  borne  to  him  an  elder  brother.  For 
Francis's  feeling  for  de  Quincey  soon  came  to  be  that 
of  a  younger  for  an  elder  brother  who  has  braved  a 
hazardous  road,  shown  the  way,  conquered,  and  left  it 
strewn  with  consolations  and  palliations.  From  de 
Quincey  he  received  the  passport,  the  royal  introduction 
set  forth  in  Sir  Walter  Raleigh-like  language  ringing 
with  at  least  the  assurance  of  its  own  stateliness  and 
power  : — 

"  0  just,  subtle,  and  all-conquering  opium  !  that  to  the  hearts 
of  rich  and  poor  alike,  for  the  wounds  that  will  never  heal  and  for 
the  pangs  of  grief  that  '  tempt  the  spirit  to  rebel,'  bringest  an 
assuaging  balm  : — eloquent  opium  !  that  with  thy  potent  rhetoric 
stealest  away  the  purposes  of  wrath,  pleadest  effectually  for  re- 
lenting pity,  and  through  one  night's  heavenly  sleep  callest  back 
to  the  guilty  man  the  visions  of  his  infancy,  and  hands  washed 
pure  from  blood ; — 0  just  and  righteous  opium  !  that  to  the 
chancery  of  dreams  summonest  for  the  triumphs  of  despairing 
innocence  false  witnesses,  confoundest  perjury,  and  dost  reverse 
the  sentences  of  unrighteous  judges  ;  then  buildest  upon  the  bosom 
of  darkness,  out  of  the  fastastic  imagery  of  the  brain,  cities  and 
temples,  beyond  the  art  of  Phidias  and  Praxiteles — beyond  the 
splendours  of  Babylon  and  Hekatompylos  ;  and, '  from  the  anarchy 
of  dreaming  sleep  '  cullest  into  sunny  light  the  faces  of  long-buried 
beauties,  and  the  blessed  household  countenances,  cleansed  from 
the  '  dishonours  of  the  grave.'  Thou  only  givest  those  gifts  to 
man  ;  and  thou  hast  the  keys  to  Paradise,  0  just,  subtle,  and 
mighty  opium  !  " 

Opium  indeed  was  in  the  air  of  Manchester,  the 
cotton- spinners  being  much  addicted  to  its  use. 
And  it  called  aloud  to  Francis  in  these  words  of  de 
Quincey.  Damnable  things  become  reasonable  or  toler- 
able in  a  city.     It  harbours  such  a  multitude  of  distresses, 

48 


The  Confessions 

such  a  conflict  of  right  and  wrong  —  the  purposes 
of  nature  stand  confused,  instincts  go  haltingly  along  the 
streets,  conscience  and  reasonings  are  stunned  between 
stone  walls.  In  one  thing,  then,  did  Francis  mishear 
the  edict  of  lawfulness.  He  took  opium  —  a  very 
pitiful  and,  surely,  very  excusable  misunderstanding. 
Constitutionally  he  was  a  target  for  the  temptation  of 
the  drug  ;  doubly  a  target  when  set  up  in  the  mis-fitting 
guise  of  a  medical  student,  and  sent  about  his  work  in 
the  middle  of  the  city  of  Manchester,  long,  according  to 
de  Quincey,  a  dingy  den  of  opium,  with  every  facility  of 
access,  and  all  the  pains  that  were  de  Quincey's  excuse. 
He  took  opium  at  the  hands  of  de  Quincey  and  his 
mother.  That  she,  "giver  of  life,  death,  peace,  distress," 
should  thus  have  confirmed  and  renewed  her  gifts  was  a 
strange  thing  to  befall.  From  her  copy  of  the  Confessions 
of  an  English  Opium  Eater  he  learnt  a  new  existence  at 
her  hands.  That  the  life  that  opium  conserved  in 
him  triumphed  over  the  death  that  opium  dealt  out  to 
him  shall  be  part  argument  of  this  book.  On  the  one 
hand,  it  staved  off  the  assaults  of  tuberculosis  ;  it  gave 
him  the  wavering  strength  that  made  life  just  possible 
for  him,  whether  on  the  streets  or  through  all  those 
other  distresses  and  discomforts  that  it  was  his  character 
deeply  to  resent  but  not  to  remove  by  any  normal 
courses ;  if  it  could  threaten  physical  degradation  he 
was  able  by  conquest  to  tower  in  moral  and  mental 
glory.  It  made  doctoring  or  any  sober  course  of  life 
even  more  impractical  than  it  was  already  rendered  by 
native  incapacities,  and  to  his  failure  in  such  careers  we 
owe  his  poetry.  On  the  other  hand,  it  dealt  with  him 
remorselessly  as  it  dealt  with  Coleridge  and  all  its  con- 
sumers. It  put  him  in  such  constant  strife  with  his 
own  conscience  that  he  had  ever  to  hide  himself  from 
himself,  and  for  concealment  he  fled  to  that  which  made 
him  ashamed,  until  it  was  as  if  the  fig-leaf  were  of  neces- 
sity plucked  from  the  Tree  of  the  Fall.     It  killed  in  him 

49  D 


Manchester  and  Medicine 

the  capacity  for  acknowledging  those  duties  to  his  family 
and  friends  which,  had  his  heart  not  been  in  shackles, 
he  would  have  owned  with  no  ordinary  ardour. 

It  is  on  account  of  a  hundred  passages  of  the  Con- 
fessions that  the  friendship  was  established.  What 
solace  of  companionship  must  Francis  have  discovered 
when  de  Quincey  told  him,  "  But  alas  !  my  eye  is  quick 
to  value  the  logic  of  evil  chances.  Prophet  of  evil  I  ever 
am  to  myself ;  forced  for  ever  into  sorrowful  auguries 
that  I  have  no  power  to  hide  from  my  own  heart,  no, 
not  through  one  night's  solitary  dreams."  Here  was  a 
boon  though  sorrowful  companion.  For  here  was  one 
who  could  translate  his  distresses  into  a  brave  art  ;  one 
who  could  extract  good  writing  out  of  his  disabilities. 
Doubtless  it  was  he  who  first  showed  to  Francis  the 
profitableness  of  bitter  experiences,  and  that,  if  gallant 
prose  might  come  of  weakness,  poetry  might  be  sown 
in  the  fields  of  failure,  and  the  crown  of  thorns  be 
turned  to  the  chaplet  of  laurel.  As  it  serves  us  in 
following  the  friendship  that  Francis  had  imagined  for 
himself,  a  passage  in  which  no  immediate  relation  to 
him  can  be  traced  may  perhaps  be  pardoned  on 
this  page.  It  is  necessary  inasmuch  as  it  shows  the 
equal  ground  trodden  by  the  two  men ;  they  were 
going  the  same  road,  the  stride  of  their  thoughts  was 
equal.  It  occurs  in  the  part  of  the  Confessions  telling  of 
the  eve  of  de  Quincey's  flight  from  school.  Evening 
prayers  are  being  said,  and  with  nerves  highly  strung 
by  the  responsibilities  of  the  morrow  there  comes  to  de 
Quincey  the  higher  meanings  and  motives  of  the  school 
devotions.  He  feels  how  "the  marvellous  magnetism 
of  Christianity "  has  gathered  into  her  service  the 
wonders  of  nature,  and  builded  her  temple  with  the 
bricks  of  Creation  : — 

"  Flowers,  for  example,  that  are  so  pathetic  in  their  beauty, 
frail  as  the  clouds,  and  in  their  colouring  as  gorgeous  as  the  heavens, 
had  through  thousands  of  years  been  the  heritage  of  children — 

50 


The  School  of  Opium 

honoured  as  the  jewellery  of  God  only  by  them — when  suddenly  the 
voice  of  Christianity,  countersigning  the  voice  of  infancy,  raised 
them  to  a  grandeur  transcending  the  Hebrew  throne,  although 
founded  by  God  Himself,  and  pronounced  Solomon  in  all  his  glory 
not  to  be  arrayed  like  one  of  these.  Winds  again,  hurricanes,  the 
eternal  breathings,  soft  or  loud,  of  /Eolian  power,  wherefore  had 
they,  raving  or  sleeping,  escaped  all  moral  arrest  and  detention  ? 
Simply  because  vain  it  were  to  offer  a  nest  for  the  reception  of  some 
new  moral  birth  whilst  no  religion  is  yet  moving  amongst  men  that 
can  furnish  such  a  birth.  Vain  is  the  image  that  should  illustrate 
a  heavenly  sentiment,  if  the  sentiment  is  yet  unborn.  Then, 
first,  when  it  had  become  necessary  to  the  purposes  of  a  spiritual 
religion  that  the  spirit  of  man,  as  the  fountain  of  all  religion,  should 
in  some  commensurate  reflex  image  have  its  grandeur  and  its 
mysteriousness  emblazoned,  suddenly  the  pomp  and  mysterious 
paths  of  winds  and  tempests,  blowing  whither  they  list,  and  from 
what  fountains  no  man  knows,  are  cited  from  darkness  and  neglect, 
to  give  and  to  receive  reciprocally  an  impassioned  glorification, 
where  the  lower  mystery  enshrines  and  illustrates  the  higher.  Call 
for  the  grandest  of  all  earthly  spectacles,  what  is  that  ?  It  is  the 
sun  going  to  his  rest.  Call  for  the  grandest  of  all  human  sentiments, 
what  is  that  ?  It  is  that  man  should  forget  his  anger  before  he 
lies  down  to  sleep.  And  these  two  grandeurs,  the  mighty  sentiment 
and  the  mighty  spectacle,  are  by  Christianity  married  together." 

Is  that,  then,  a  Manchester  school  of  thought,  or  no 
more  than  an  accident  ?  These  two  men,  singularly 
conscious  of  nature's  liturgy,  one  of  whom  wrote  this 
passage,  and  the  other  of  "pontifical  death,"  had 
both  been  forced  to  dodge  the  cotton  warehouses  that 
they  might  see  their  sunsets  ;  both  had  to  fly  from  the 
normal  liturgy  of  life  and  be  estranged  from  themselves 
and  their  fellow-creatures  by  those  qualities  and  sensi- 
tivenesses of  the  intellect  which  best  enabled  them  to  see 
in  themselves  and  in  their  fellow-men  the  symbols  and 
instruments  of  the  Almighty. 

Very  like  de  Quincey's  repudiation  of  guilt  would  have 
been  Francis's  : — 

"  Infirmity  and  misery  do  not,  of  necessity,  imply  guilt.  They 
approach,  or  recede   from,  the  shades  of  that  dark   alliance  in 

51 


Manchester  and  Medicine 

proportion  of  the  probable  motives  and  prospects  of  the  offender, 
and  to  the  palliations,  known  or  secret,  of  the  offence  ;  in  pro- 
portion as  the  temptations  to  it  were  potent  from  the  first,  and  as 
the  resistance  to  it,  in  act  or  in  effort,  were  earnest  to  the  last." 

Through  what  complication  of  persuasion  by  weakness 
and  pain,  impulse  and  even  reason,  the  other  Manchester 
boy  passed  may  be  guessed  at  through  the  more  palpable 
screen  of  de  Quincey's  prose.  De  Quincey  published  his 
offences  and  defences,  prosecuted,  summed  up,  and 
reported  in  his  own  case  ;  and  it  was  upon  his  ruling 
that  Francis  built  up  his  own  subtler  arguments,  ad- 
vanced and  judged  in  camera. 

Unlike  de  Quincey,  he  had  no  burning  desire  to  justify 
himself ;  his  own  private  excuse  he  had  no  desire  to 
strengthen  with  the  written  and  published  word,  or  by 
seeking  the  corroborating  content  of  others.  He  was 
consistently  silent  and  secret  on  the  point,  and,  if  his 
silence  did  not  avail  to  hide  his  secret,  he  was  still  silent 
in  the  manner  of  the  lover  who  stole  a  kiss  in  the 
"Angel  in  the  House":  we  knew  that  he  knew  we 
knew  about  his  drug.  His  pleading  was  not  before 
man's  tribunal,  but  before  the  higher  courts  of  con- 
science and  of  poetry.  During  his  first  experiences  of 
the  opium  he  had  not  the  consolatory  knowledge  of  his 
genius,  for  it  was  only  in  later  years  when  he  was 
delivered  of  his  poetry  and  beheld  it  emerge  unmarred 
by  his  former  surrender  to  the  drug,  that  he  found 
peace  of  mind. 

De  Quincey,  while  he  averred  that  the  object  of  his 
confessions  "  was  to  emblazon  the  power  of  opium — not 
over  bodily  disease  and  pain,  but  over  the  grander  and 
more  shadowy  world  of  dreams,"  did  nevertheless  owe 
his  initial  experience  of  the  drug  to  the  prompting  and 
searching  of  frantic  toothache.  Nor  was  his  object  merely 
an  emblazoning.  On  one  page  it  is  denunciation  of  an 
intolerable  burden — the  "accursed  chain";  on  another 
his  motive  seemed  to  him  to  be  to  give  to  opium-eaters 

52 


"  The   Saving  of  my   Life  ' 

the  consolation  and  encouragement  of  the  knowledge 
that  the  habit  may  be  put  off,  "without  greater  suffering 
than  an  ordinary  resolution  may  support,  and  by  a 
pretty  rapid  course  of  descent."  He  sets  up  his  admir- 
able argument  in  the  midst  of  contradictions :  he  is 
positive  of  his  own  attitude  even  while  he  does  not  know 
which  way  to  face,  whether  towards  dreams,  or  towards 
the  harsher  fields  of  actuality.  Under  the  generalship  of 
his  prose  his  reader  may  be  marshalled  into  toleration 
and  acceptance,  or  sent  hurrying  away  from  the  con- 
templation of  a  dreadful  enemy.  De  Quincey's  two 
minds  are  apparent,  too,  in  the  history  of  his  case.  At 
times  he  turned  upon  himself  and  mastered  the  habit 
to  which  at  others  he  was  obedient,  and  even  reverent. 

How  weak  the  prop,  as  weak  as  broken  poppies  ;  its 
very  praises  fade  on  the  page,  like  water  thrown  on  sand, 
in  the  setting  forth.  De  Quincey  writes  that  the  opium- 
eater  never  finishes  his  work,  that  Coleridge's  contribu- 
tions to  literature  were  made  in  spite  of  opium,  that  it 
killed  him  as  a  poet,  that  the  leaving  off  of  this — his 
mighty  opium — creates  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth. 

"  Opium,  the  saving  of  my  life,"  is  one  of  Thompson's 
own  most  rare  allusions  to  it.  For  de  Quincey  he  never 
abated  his  old  ardour  of  respect.  The  heat  of  his 
partisanship  may  be  sufficiently  measured  in  a  letter, 
dated  1900,  in  which  he  falls  upon  some  critic  of  his 
Manchester  master  : — 

"  Read  the  essay  on  D.  Q. — read — read,  and  if  you  ever 
meet  the  writer,  kick  him  till  he  roar  at  the  squeak  of  a 
boot  and  snuffle  at  the  whiff  of  a  leather  shop  for  the 
rest  of  his  life  !  Yet  canst  thou  not  kick  to  the  measure 
of  his  deserts,  wert  thou  Polypheme  with  earthquake  on 
thy  feet.  Shall  such  monstrous  fellows  live  and  publish 
their  villainous  mismeasurement  of  great  literature,  and 
be  hailed  '  sane  critics '  by  the  muddy  clappers-on  of 
mediocrity  ?     I   am  whipped  out   of  my  patience   that 

53 


Manchester  and  Medicine 

I  cannot  call  these  scullions  in  good  print  'ass  un- 
paralleled,' but  must  mince  and  fine  my  phrases  to  a 
smooth  and  customed  censure." 


Only  those  who  know  how  well  his  mental  matched 
his  physical  inability  in  assault  and  battery  can  be 
certain  of  the  utter  artifice  of  this  exercise  in  petulance. 
He  could  be  angry  only  when  his  anger  was  safely 
out  of  range  of  giving  pain.  He  would  kick  in  the 
closet  of  his  note-books,  but  wrould  ever  be  nearer  kissing 
when  his  action  came  to  be  communicated.  And  even 
in  his  note-books  he  would  seldom  indulge  personal 
spite  ;  his  unkind  entries  are  sheathed  in  blanks,  so  that 
no  accident  of  perusal  could  hurt  the  feelings  of  the 
censured. 

It  has  been  doubted  whether  he  actually  "  sat  "  for  his 
medical  examination,  but  considering  how  little  bold  he 
was  among  strangers  and  in  a  strange  town,  it  is  un- 
likely that  on  this  first  occasion  he  summoned  enough 
courage  to  play  truant.  In  all  probability  he  was  con- 
ducted to  the  place  of  examination,  but  one  can  only 
conjecture  his  behaviour  as  he  was  more  than  usually 
silent  on  his  return.  "  I  have  not  passed  "  is  all  the  in- 
formation he  vouchsafed  when,  some  little  time  after, 
he  is  supposed  to  have  received  notice  of  his  failure. 
Two  years  more  of  pretended  study  followed,  with  some 
real  reading  at  home  in  the  evenings.  It  was  Francis's 
quickness  of  intelligence  during  these  extra  hours  of 
more  congenial  research  that  enabled  him  to  appear 
in  conversation  with  his  father  as  one  moderately  well 
equipped  in  the  knowledge  of  medicine.  But  after 
Francis  again  visited  London  in  1882,  after  four  years 
in  all  of  study,  and  again  returned  with  the  formula  of  "  I 
have  not  passed,"  his  father  called  upon  the  authorities  at 
Owens  College,  and  learnt  that  Francis's  non-attendances 
were  far  in  advance  of  his  attendances.  During  two 
more  years  of  preparation  he  read  less  and  less  at  home. 

54 


.  T/rouicl6  .  MurmJkkm 


•n   1871 


nil 


The   Examinations 

He  would  come  in  late  in  the  evening,  declaring  that 
a  professor  or  a  lecturer  had  taken  him  to  give  him 
extra  instruction,  and  not  till  some  time  afterwards  was 
it  discovered  that  the  house  he  visited  was  the  home 
of  a  musician,  and  the  instruction  that  of  listening  to 
music  performed  upon  the  piano.  Of  music  he  was 
extremely  fond  :  his  interest  in  it  would  be  passionate 
or  else  totally  obscured  when,  in  later  years,  there  was 
music  going  forward  in  his  presence. 

Calling  it  his  chief  recreation,  he  continued  for  years 
without  it.  For  Berlioz  he  kept  the  excited  enthusiasm 
of  a  child,  childish  memory  doing  the  trick.  He  would 
often  tell  of  music  (Berlioz,  Beethoven,  Chopin)  heard  in 
Manchester,  where  he  attended  concerts  with  his  mother. 
He  himself  could  no  more  than  strike  a  sequence  of 
chords  upon  the  piano,  which  he  would  do  with  so  much 
earnestness  that  I,  as  a  child,  was  impressed  by  his  per- 
formance. In  listening  to  music  his  emotion  was  equally 
manifest.  Standing  at  the  piano,  he  would  gaze  at  the 
performer,  his  body  wavering  to  and  fro  in  tremulous 
pleasure  ;  or,  as  often,  he  would  not  heed  at  all. 

It  was  decided  that  his  third  attempt  upon  the  pro- 
fession of  medicine  should  be  made  at  Glasgow,  where 
degrees  were  more  easily,  if  less  honourably,  to  be  ob- 
tained. But  the  examination,  if  indeed  it  was  actually 
accepted,  was  approached  with  no  endeavour  or  even 
anxiety,  except  on  the  father's  part,  for  success.  Indeed, 
failure  must  have  been  very  frankly  courted  by  Francis, 
whose  main  fault  was  that  he  had  not  the  courage  openly 
to  dispute  his  father's  decision  in  regard  to  a  career. 
Never  once  did  he  intimate  that  his  heart  was  set  on 
poetry,  although  from  sixteen,  as  he  afterwards  said,  he 
studied  and  practised  metre  ;  it  is  not  unlikely  that  to 
have  been  told  to  go  and  make  a  business  of  literature 
would  have  been  more  irksome  to  him  than  passing  the 
years  in  the  evasion  of  medicine.  His  secret  absorption 
in  his  own  interests  was,  after  all,  not  uncomfortably 

55 


Manchester  and  Medicine 

circumstanced  during  all  these  years,  for  it  is  certain 
that  literature  was  a  second  life  to  Francis  which  could 
be  lived  alone  most  happily.  After  failure  in  Glasgow, 
Francis  met  with  a  severe  show  of  impatience  and  dis- 
appointment from  his  father.  Many  trials  had  been 
tolerated  at  the  son's  hands,  hundreds  of  pounds  had 
been  expended,  and  the  son's  future  was  less  secure  than 
ever.  Dr.  Thompson  determined  on  such  courses  as  he 
thought  would  compel  Francis  to  some  undertaking  of 
the  responsibilities  of  life. 

No  little  money  had  been  spent  on  examination  fees 
to  examiners  who  probably  had  no  papers  to  examine ; 
on  dissecting  fees  which  did  not  once  compel  Francis's 
presence  at  the  dissecting-table.  He  was  already  spend- 
ing money  on  opium. 

After  many  leniencies,  such  as  accepting  Francis's  own 
account  of  his  studies  at  Owens  College  and  all  his 
excuses  for  absences  from  home  in  the  evening,  Dr. 
Thompson  put  Francis  to  such  obviously  uncongenial 
tasks  as  were  to  be  found  in  the  establishment  of  a 
surgical  instrument  maker,  whom  he  served  for  two 
weeks  only,  and  as  the  purveyor  of  an  encyclopaedia. 

At  neither  of  these  businesses  did  Francis  succeed  ;  it 
took  him  two  months  to  read  the  encyclopaedia,  and  then 
he  discarded  it,  unsold.  Nor  was  there  any  possibility  of 
success.  In  reviewing  his  prospects  at  this  time  his  father 
warned  him,  among  other  things,  that  he  would  have  to 
enlist  if  he  found  no  other  means  of  support.  Without 
a  word,  Francis  went,  like  Coleridge,  for  a  soldier.  With 
what  hopes  or  intentions  it  is  difficult  to  conceive,  but 
obviously  still  with  that  desire  of  obeying,  so  far  as  he 
was  able,  his  father's  instructions.  It  seems  he  did  not 
suffer  himself  merely  to  be  measured  by  the  recruiting 
examiners,  but  also  to  be  marched  and  drilled  in  the 
attempt  to  expand  his  chest  to  the  necessary  inches.  He 
spoke  in  later  years  of  the  weariness  it  was  to  march, 
and  of  the  barrack  yard,  and  even  maintained  that  his 

56 


He   Enlists 

upright  bearing  had  been  learnt  at  that  time.  But  as  his 
upright  bearing  is  exactly  the  upright  bearing  of  a  brave 
figure  (his  sister's),  stiffer  than  the  starched  gear  about 
her  face  and  throat  in  the  habit  and  convent  of  her  order 
in  Manchester,  it  does  not  follow  that  Francis's  recruiting 
counts  for  very  much.  He  returned  from  it  late  one 
night,  silent  as  when  he  returned  from  the  examinations 
in  London  and  Glasgow.  I  do  not  think  he  even  told 
the  family  as  much  as  he  told  my  father  in  later  years — 
that  he  was  not  "  Private  Thompson  "  only  because  he 
failed  to  pass  the  army  physical  examination. 

On  the  second  Sunday  (day  of  rest  and  the  turmoil 
bred  of  rest)  in  November,  1885,  Francis  was  forced  to 
find  time  for  the  discussion  of  his  prospects  with  his 
father,  and  with  it  he  found  a  certain  energy  of  failure 
and  despair.  His  demeanour  gave  rise  to  the  notion  in 
his  family  that  he  was  in  the  habit  of  drinking.  His 
father  taxed  him  with  it,  but  was  mystified  by  Francis's 
strenuous  denials  ;  opium,  not  alcohol,  was  the  cause  of 
his  flushes.  Here  was  yet  another  point  of  difficulty 
and  trial. 

The  next  day  (Monday,  November  9,  1885),  his 
sister  found  on  her  dressing-table  a  note  from  Francis 
saying  that  he  had  gone  to  London.  It  was  a  hopeless 
note  ;  his  mood  was  hopeless.  He  later  described  his 
flight  thus  :  "  The  peculiarity  in  my  case  is  that  I  made 
the  journey  to  the  Capital  without  hope,  and  with  the 
gloomiest  forebodings,  in  the  desperate  spirit  of  an 
enfant  perdu."  But  in  hopelessness,  as  in  all  his  moods, 
he  hesitated.  He  did  not  want  to  leave  home.  "To 
stay  under  happy  parental  supervision,  to  work  because 
I  must,  but  to  make  my  delight  of  the  exercise  of  the 
imagination "  was  his  ambition.  Parental  supervision 
had  not  prevented  the  shutting  of  his  door.  So  closely 
did  he  fasten  it  that  he  had  never  told  his  father  of  his 
exercises,  or  his  sisters,  who,  according  to  an  uncle, 
eschewed    poetry   as   if   it   were   a  snare ;    "  both  have 

57 


Manchester  and  Medicine 

character,  but  both  are  very  reserved,  indeed  impene- 
trable." Small  wonder  there  had  been  silence  in  the 
house,  save  about  cricket  and  wars.  "What  does  one 
want  with  a  tongue  when  one  has  silence  ?  " 

For  a  week  he  lingered  in  Manchester,  living  on  the 
proceeds  of  the  sale  of  his  books  and  other  possessions. 
It  had  been  his  habit  to  obey  the  command  of  the 
drug  by  the  disposal  of  his  books  and  medical  instru- 
ments. His  microscope  had  gone,  and  been  replaced — 
no  light  task  for  his  father — and  now,  at  the  crisis,  he 
had  to  go  bare  even  of  poetry  books.  Ninety-five 
would  he  sell,  but  to  the  remnant  of  a  library  he  would 
cling  with  a  persistence  that  defied  even  the  terrific  imp 
of  the  laudanum  bottle. 

For  a  week  Francis  hesitated  and  then  wrote  home, 
dating  his  letter  from  the  Post  Office,  for  his  fare  to 
London.  It  was  sent,  and  he  made  the  journey.  What- 
ever its  discouragement,  it  must  yet  have  been  some- 
thing added  to  the  little  sum  of  hopefulness  to  leave  Man- 
chester. London,  of  conjectural  disaster,  drew  him  from 
the  Manchester  of  tried  and  proved  failure.  His  luggage, 
scanty  enough  in  itself,  was  weighted  with  no  regrets. 
He  was  going  to  new  possibilities.  But  he  carried 
Blake  and  Aeschylus  in  his  pocket.  Thus  had  de 
Quincey  gone,  content  with  the  same  bodily  starvation 
and  mental  food — "  carrying  a  small  parcel  with  some 
articles  of  dress  under  my  arm  ;  a  favourite  English 
poet  in  one  pocket,  and  an  odd  volume,  containing  one- 
half  of  Canter's  Euripides  in  the  other." 

Of  the  father  and  the  fugitive  the  poet's  uncle  after- 
wards wrote  to  my  father  : — 

"  He  has  been  a  great  trouble  and  sorrow  to  his  father  from  his 
want  of  ballast.  He  started  with  every  advantage,  but  has 
come  to  nothing.  At  last  he  went  to  London,  where  he  seems  to 
have  led  a  sort  of  Bohemian  life.  There  does  not  appear  to  have 
been  anything  of  what  is  usually  termed  immorality  ;  but  he  was 
never  to  be  depended  on,  and  I  fear  he  indulged  in  drink.     As  his 

58 


His   Father 

father  expresses  it  in  a  letter  to  me  this  morning,  he  likes  to  lead 
a  dawdling,  sauntering  sort  of  life.  .  .  .  There  was  nothing  in  his 
home  life  to  lead  him  to  divulge  himself,  no  encouragement  and 
no  sympathy  with  his  ambitions.  His  sisters,  who  might  have 
been  of  use  in  expounding  him — if  I  may  use  such  a  phrase — 
have  so  little  of  the  poetical  element  in  them  that  they  seem  on 
principle  to  have  eschewed  all  poetry  as  if  it  were  a  temptation 
and  a  snare.  .  .  .  This  I  believe  to  be  the  key  to,  and  so  far  an 
excuse  for,  his  deceitful  proceedings  and  his  apparent  callousness 
and  ingratitude.  I  wish  I  were  in  a  position  to  help  him  pecu- 
niarily, but  at  present  I  am  not.  However,  I  can  show  him  sym- 
pathy and  approbation.  It  is  years  since  any  communication 
took  place  between  us,  and  in  my  last  letter  I  ventured  to  give 
him  some  advice  as  to  his  hypercritical  tendencies,  and  he  never 
wrote  to  me  again.  So  I  suspect  he  did  not  relish  my  animad- 
versions." 

Another  Manchester  letter  from  a  close  friend  of  his 
family  runs  : — 

"  To  begin  with,  young  Thompson  was  not  brought  up  amongst 
'  gallipots  ' ;  no  son  could  have  been  more  kindly  or  more  generously 
treated,  and  it  was  not  until  this  genius  was  gone  utterly  to  the 
bad  that  his  father  lost  sight  of  him.  He  was  most  carefully 
educated,  and  no  young  man  has  ever  had  a  better  or  a  kinder 
mother  or  father.  I  don't  think  Dr.  Thompson  is  destitute  of 
the  poetic  imagination,  and  I  think  he  might  have  been  excused 
if  he  did  not  perceive  at  once  that  poetry  which  differs  from  all 
which  has  delighted  the  world  for  three  thousand  years  was,  of  all 
poetry,  the  most  to  be  admired.  .  .  .  The  way  in  which  you  have 
compared  the  coming  of  Frank  Thompson  to  the  Messiah  is  ap- 
proaching the  profane." 

But  Francis  had  another  opinion  of  the  poetic  in- 
fluence of  his  home  ;  and  to  see  his  sister  and  read  in  her 
eyes  the  new  and  more  explicit  version  of  the  household 
spirituality,  is  to  credit  his  own  view.  His  statement 
that  "the  spirit  of  such  poems  as  'The  Making  of  Viola' 
and  '  The  Judgement  in  Heaven  '  is  no  mere  mediaeval 
imitation,  but  the  natural  temper  of  my  Catholic  training 
in  a  simple  provincial  home"  is  easily  believed.     It  is 

59 


Manchester  and   Medicine 

not  generally  understood,  he  says,  that  the  "  irreverence  " 
(so  called)  of  mediaeval  poetry  and  drama  is  not  merely 
primitive  but  Catholic.  He  quotes,  as  quite  within  his 
comprehension,  the  remark  of  Miss  L.  that,  if  she  saw 
Our  Lord,  the  first  thing  she  would  be  impelled  to  do 
would  be  to  put  her  arms  about  Him — a  remark  prompted 
by  a  hostile  comment  on  a  Christ  and  St.  Francis  (in 
statuary)  with  their  arms  about  each  other. 

The  father's  own  comment,  when  he  found  his  son 
welcomed  as  a  poet,  was  :  ''  If  the  lad  had  but  told  me  !  " 
Mr.  J.  Saxon  Mills  says  : — 

"  The  doctor  was  even  more  amused  than  gratified  at  seeing  his 
son's  name  suddenly  coupled  with  those  of  Shelley  or  Keats  or 
Tennyson.  He  admitted,  moreover,  that  Frank's  productions 
were  quite  beyond  his  own  comprehension,  and  I  am  not  sure 
that  the  worthy  doctor  regarded  the  greenest  of  poetic  laurels  as 
a  fair  exchange  for  a  thriving  medical  practice." 


60 


CHAPTER    IV:    LONDON    STREETS 

To  him  who  had  during  that  last  week  fathomed 
the  abysses  of  Manchester,  the  "unfathomable  abyss" 
of  London  was  hardly  more  black.  It  might  be 
supposed  that  the  city  of  Manchester  was  as  good  as 
another  in  which  to  be  destitute  ;  poverty  in  modern 
streets  is  a  mean  and  dirty  business  at  its  best  as  at  its 
worst.  But  in  London  a  staggering  part  is  played  on  a 
great  stage  haunted  with  great  presences.  There  is  a 
literary  grandiloquence  about  the  capital's  rags  that 
Manchester's  do  not  own  :  for  the  time  it  takes  for  the 
fraying  of  a  pair  of  cuffs,  we  may  suppose,  this  glamour 
has  effect.  It  was  something  to  tread  the  pavements 
of  Oxford  Street,  something  to  despair,  if  despair  one 
must,  where  Chatterton  despaired  ;  fitting,  in  a  poetic 
sense,  as  Francis  had  discovered  when  he  wrote  "  In 
no  Strange  Land,"  to  have  your  Christ  walking  on  the 
dark  waters  of  the  Thames,  and  to  rear  your  Jacob's 
ladder  from  Charing  Cross. 

But  if  there  is  a  ghostly  companionship  in  the  capital, 
it  was  mightily  empty  of  the  real  solace  of  friendly 
presences.  "The  only  fostering  soil  for  genius"  Lamb 
called  the  Metropolis.  But  Francis  did  not  so  regard 
it.  The  writing  of  the  first  poems  and  prose,  the  whole 
acceptance  of  a  vocation,  were  undertaken  in  complete 
isolation.  It  was  a  hard  soil,  bare  as  the  pavement. 
There  were  no  allurements  of  companionship,  no  excite- 
ments or  encouragements  of  example  and  emulation.  He 
knew  no  laughing  bookseller  in  St.  Martin's  Court.  A 
poet,  he  knew  no  poet,  save  a  formidable  uncle,  in  the 

61 


London   Streets 

flesh  ;  no  writer,  save  the  reputed  "  noted  authors  "  whom 
he  came  to  serve  with  slippers  at  a  shop  in  Panton 
Street.  Without  friends  or  courage,  Francis  found  no 
better  job  than  that  of  a  "  collector "  of  books.  Thus 
his  first  efforts  for  a  livelihood  in  London  were  made 
with  a  sackful  of  literature  upon  his  shoulders,  the 
day's  "orders"  of  a  general  bookseller.  His  journeys 
would  be  laborious  and  slowly  accomplished,  and  his 
turn  in  all  probability  the  last  served  at  the  wholesale 
counters  where  he  called  out  the  list.  Unlike  his  fellow- 
collectors,  he  would  have  an  additional  stock  in  his 
private  pocket — his  own  library — and  his  interest  would 
be  in  this  rather  than  in  the  bundle  on  his  back;  he 
might  bend  under  works  on  cookery,  sport,  Methodism, 
and  social  reform,  but  Blake  and  Aeschylus  would  buoy 
him  up. 

That  he  found  no  work  commensurate  with  his  attain- 
ments is  but  another  item  in  the  whole  sequence  of 
circumstances  that  liken  his  case  to  de  Quincey's. 
De  Quincey  tells  of  difficulties  imagined  and  real  that 
kept  him  from  applying  to  the  friends  of  his  father  for 
assistance.  Another  mode  of  livelihood,  "  that  of  turn- 
ing any  talents  or  knowledge  that  I  might  possess  to  a 
lucrative  use — I  now  feel  half  inclined  to  join  my  reader 
in  wondering  why  I  overlooked  it.  As  a  corrector  of 
Greek  proofs  (if  in  no  other  way),  I  might  surely  have 
gained  enough  for  my  slender  wants.  .  .  .  But  why  talk 
of  my  qualifications  ?  Qualified  or  not,  where  could  I 
obtain  such  an  office  ?  For  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  even  a  diabolic  appointment  requires  interest. 
Towards  that  I  must  first  of  all  have  an  introduction  to 
some  respectable  publisher ;  and  this  I  had  no  means  of 
obtaining.  To  say  the  truth,  however,  it  had  never 
once  occurred  to  me  to  think  of  literary  labours  as  a 
source  of  profit."  With  arguments  as  lengthy  as  those, 
Francis  would  often  expound  excellent  reasons  for  not 
doing  that  which  it  had  never  occurred  to  him  to  under- 

62 


He  does  Odd  Jobs 

take.     The  truth  was  that  he  came  to  London  that  he 
might  exist  and  no  more. 

A  desire  of  observing  the  town  was  de  Quincey's 
excuse  for  his  wanderings  over  London.  Francis  made 
no  such  plea,  but  wandered  the  same  gait.  Market-place 
and  an  occasional  theatre  ;  door-step  consolation  and 
porch  shelter  ;  the  absorption  in  the  things  of  the  spirit 
and  the  stifling  of  the  interruptions  of  material  things 
with  opium  ;  the  momentary  fears  of  bodily  privation, 
succumbing  to  fortunate  forgetfulness  and  numbness,  the 
intellectual  realisation  of  the  avvfulness  of  their  surround- 
ings tempered  by  physical  indifference  ;  and  the  admix- 
ture with  this  same  physical  indifference  of  an  extreme 
bodily  frailty  and  susceptibility  to  suffering — all  the  con- 
tradictions found  in  the  one  man  are  confirmed  in  the 
other.  That  each  was  befriended  by  an  unfortunate 
girl  of  the  streets  was  a  continuation  of  the  duality  of 
contradictions.  Two  outcast  women  were  to  these  two 
outcast  men  the  sole  ambassadors  of  the  world's  gentle- 
ness and  generosity.  More  of  Francis's  "brave,  sad, 
lovingest,  tender  thing  "  will  be  set  down  on  a  later  page. 

He  was  quick  to  lose  his  "book-collecting,"  slow  to 
find  other  work.  He  liked  the  Guildhall  Library  better 
than  "situations,"  and  while  he  had  seven  shillings  a 
week  from  home,  he  managed  to  be  there  a  good  deal. 
He  spoke  of  having  clung  to  outward  respectability,  and 
told  that  on  the  streets  rags  are  no  necessary  accompani- 
ment to  destitution.  But  his  rags  came  quickly  enough  ; 
within  a  few  weeks  he  was  below  the  standards  set  by 
the  employers  of  casual  labour.  He  now  began  to  learn 
something  of  his  companions,  of  their  slang,  of  their 
ways  and  means.  It  was  not  always  amongst  the  lowest 
grades  of  the  poor  that  he  met  the  people  he  could 
most  dislike.  He  notes  that  the  street-outcast  is  gener- 
ally opposed  to  Atheism  ;  that  he  is  often  nameless, 
often  kind,  always  honest  with  his  fellows  ("  only  once 
did  any  one  try  to  cheat  mei").     Generosity  he  noticed 

63 


London   Streets 

particularly  in  the  readiness  of  beggars  to  pay  each 
other's  lodgings.  Once  a  policeman  aided  him,  but  that 
aid  was  unexpected  and  unrepeated.  Of  the  men  he 
met  at  common  lodging-houses,  or  in  whose  company 
he  slept  in  archways,  or  with  whom  he  entered  into 
partnership  in  the  business  of  fetching  cabs  or  selling 
matches,  he  names  but  very  few  :  "  The  actor,  poor 
Kelsall,  'Newcastle,'"  is  one  entry  in  a  note-book.  The 
murderer  to  whom  he  makes  several  allusions,  he  disguises 
under  the  initials  D.  I.  From  one  friend  he  had  practical 
lessons  in  the  arts  of  confinement,  so  that  he  could  say 
to  his  editor  in  later  years,  when  a  review-book  was  lost : 
"  You  can  either  let  me  replace  it,  or  put  me  in  gaol. 
I  know  how  to  pick  oakum."  But  there  were  some 
companions  to  disgust  him  :  "  Their  conversation  is  im- 
possible of  report.  If  you  want  to  know  it  (and  you 
are  every  way  a  gainer  by  not  knowing  it,  while  you 
lose  what  can  never  be  regained  by  knowing  it)  go  to 
Rabelais  and  his  like,  where  you  will  find  a  very  faint 
image  of  it.  Nearer  you  may  get  by  reading  '  West- 
minster Drolleries '  and  other  eighteenth  century  collec- 
tions of  swine-trough  hoggery.  For  naked  bestiality  you 
must  go  to  the  modern  bete  humaine."  He  learnt  enough 
of  their  slang  to  be  amused  at  the  unreality  of  language 
put  into  the  mouths  of  the  thieves  of  fiction  ;  and  in 
any  case  the  foulness  of  the  real  thing  is  irreproclucible. 
He  learned,  too,  of  the  workhouse,  of  homes  of  refuge  ; 
that  prison  is  held  to  be  no  disgrace ;  and  above  all,  as 
month  succeeded  month,  that  death  is  surprisingly  slow 
on  a  shilling  a  day. 

His  bed  was  made  according  to  his  fortune.  If  he  had 
no  money,  it  was  the  Embankment;  if  he  had  a  shilling, 
he  could  choose  his  lodging  ;  if  he  had  fourpence,  he 
was  obliged  to  tramp  to  Blackfriars.  Something  of  his 
manner  of  spending  his  money  he  told  me  :  "  No,  Evie, 
you  do  not  spend  your  penny  on  a  mug  of  tea.  That 
will  be  gone  very  quickly.     You  spend  it,  Evie,  not  on 

64 


Boot-black 

a  mug  of  tea ;  not,  I  say,  on  a  mug  of  tea,  but  on  the 
tea  itself.  You  buy  a  pennyworth  and  make  it  with 
the  boiling  water  from  the  common  kettle  in  the  doss- 
house.  You  get  several  cups  that  way  instead  of  one." 
It  was  at  lodging-houses  that  he  would  lie  watching  the 
beetles  crawling  on  the  ceiling — that  was  the  exchange 
he  made  for  "  the  abashless  inquisition  of  each  star  "  of 
the  nights  when  he  had  no  pennies  and  so  no  bed  ;  and 
it  is  the  image  he  used  afterwards  in  a  Tom-o'-Bedlam's 
song : — 

As  a  burst  and  blood-blown  insect 

Cleaves  to  the  wall  it  dies  on, 
The  smeared  sun 
Doth  clot  upon 

A  heaven  without  horizon.1 

In  a  common  lodging-house  he  met  and  had  talk  with 
the  man  who  was  supposed  by  the  group  about  the  fire 
to  De  a  murderer  uncaught.  And  when  it  was  not  in 
a  common  lodging-house,  it  was  at  a  Shelter  or  Refuge 
that  he  would  lie  in  one  of  the  oblong  boxes  without 
lids,  containing  a  mattress  and  a  leathern  apron  or 
coverlet,  that  are  the  fashion,  he  says,  in  all  Refuges. 
The  time  came  when  for  a  week  his  only  earning  was 
sixpence  got  for  holding  a  horse's  head.  That  was  after 
he  had  made  an  attempt  to  establish  himself  with  a 
boot-black  stand,  and  failed  because  of  the  interference 
of  the  police,  who  moved  him  on  at  the  request  of  the 
shopkeeper  at  his  chosen  street-corner. 

His  way  home  in  later  years  was  always  northwards, 
along  the  Edgware  Road.  It  is  a  thoroughfare  that  keeps 
late  hours,  crossing  the  highway  between  Paddington 

1  There  is  some  parallel  for  this  image  (Tom-o'-Bedlam's,  be  it  remembered) 
in  Rossetti's — 

But  the  sea  stands  spread 
As  one  wall  with  the  flat  skies, 
Where  the  lean  black  craft,  like  flies, 
Seem  well-nigh  stagnated, 
Soon  to  drop  off  dead. 

65  E 


London  Streets 

and  King's  Cross  ;  it  makes  southwards  towards  Victoria 
and  the  town  ;  it  has  its  music-halls,  and,  after  they 
are  closed,  its  coffee-stalls,  tiny  centres  of  distressed 
humanity  waiting  for  the  dawn.  They  are  the  pickets 
set  up  against  the  enemy  Night,  in  a  campaign  which, 
on  the  whole,  is  less  sullenly  undertaken  than  the 
campaign  of  the  day.  There  is  much  companionship 
along  the  pavements  in  the  night  watches  :  the  regiment 
of  the  poor  falls  into  some  sort  of  rank,  and  whether  a 
man's  business  is  merely  to  keep  moving  till  the  park- 
gates  are  opened  in  the  morning,  or  to  reach  some 
distant  lodging,  some  favourite  shelter,  or  a  point  of 
vantage  for  the  coming  day,  he  need  never  be  com- 
panionless  on  this  road.  And  seldom,  unless  he  be 
very  new  to  the  manner  of  life  or  very  old,  does  the 
poor  man  not  fall  in  with  the  conviviality  that  is  within 
his  reach.  Be  he  so  stupid  that  he  has  failed  in  the 
meanest  ambitions,  yet  he  will  be  able  to  establish 
himself  in  this  society,  and  be  a  man  of  affairs  among 
beggars. 

Every  man,  and  every  woman  however  grossly  she  has 
fallen,  acquires  a  certain  aptitude  in  the  University  of 
the  Last  Resort.  Some  sort  of  shrewdness,  entirely  above 
the  scullery  pitch,  has  become  a  necessity  by  the  time 
the  pavement  is  the  Home.  And  even  the  poet  came, 
like  the  outcast  ostler,  or  matchmaker,  or  scullery- 
maid,  to  possess  a  small  share  of  this  lower-worldliness. 
When  it  was  a  matter,  during  the  day,  of  collecting 
coppers  sufficient  for  the  day  and  spending  them  in  the 
pinched  markets  of  poverty,  he  had  perforce  to  be  alive 
to  the  world  about  him.  Later  on,  when  there  was  no 
necessity,  I  could  observe  in  him  a  certain  flickering 
pride  of  experience  :  occasionally  he  would  exert  him- 
self to  show  that  he  knew  how  to  pass  the  time  of  day 
with  a  man  upon  the  street,  how  to  invest  in  a  pipe, 
a  kettle,  or  in  oddments  of  cheap  food.  Ordering  his 
meal  at  a  coffee-house,  he  would  pretend  to  a  certain 

66 


Miracle   of  the   Halfpennies 

acumen  in  the  matter  of  dishes  or  of  waitresses,  adjust- 
ing his  tie  and  his  expression.  But  who  can  ever  have 
been  deceived  that  here  was  any  one  save  a  timorous 
defaulter  in  the  matter  of  savoir-faire  ?  Not,  certainly, 
an  A. B.C.  girl  or  an  observant  tramp. 

Among  the   miracles    is   that   of   The   Golden    Half- 
pennies.     They  came  to   him  on   a  day  when  he  had 
not  even  the  penny  to  invest  in  matches  that  might 
brin^   him  interest   on   his   money.     He  was,  he  told 
me,  walking,  vacant  with  desperation,  along  a  crowded 
pavement,  when  he  heard  the  clink  of  a  coin  and  saw 
something     bright    rolling    towards    the    gutter.       He 
stooped,  picked  it  up,  looked  around,  found  no  claim- 
ant, and  put  into  his  waistcoat  pocket,  as  he  affirmed 
with  the  many  repetitions  that  characterised  his  anec- 
dotes, a  bright  new  halfpenny.      He    proceeded   some 
distance  on  his  way,  pondering  the  things  he  could  or 
could  not  procure  with  his  money,  when  it  struck  him 
that  the  other  direction  would  lead  him  to  a  shop  with 
such  wares  as  he  had  decided  on.     As  he  neared  the 
place  where  he  had  found  the  first  coin  he  saw  another 
glittering  in  the  road.     This,  too,  he   picked   up,  and 
again  thought  he  held  a  halfpenny.     But  looking  closer 
he  discovered  it  to  be  golden  and  a  sovereign,  and  only 
after  much  persuasion  of  his  senses  would  he  believe 
the  first-found  one  to  be  likewise  gold.     "That  was  a 
sovereign  too,  Evie ;  I  looked  and  I  saw  it  was  a  sove- 
reign too ! "  he  ended,  with  rising  voice  and  tremulous 
laughter.     One  who  heard  him  tell  his  tale  held  strictly 
that  he  should  have  delivered  the  money  to  the  nearest 
police-station  to  await  the  inquiry  of  its  owner  ;  but  that, 
surely,  were  an  ill  economy,  to  look  after  the  farthings  of 
scrupulousness  at  the  cost  of  the  pounds  of  Providence. 
Thompson,  half  suspicious  of  a  miracle,  made  a  shrewd 
guess  that  no  angel  would  apply  at  Marlborough  Street. 
At  another  time  he  did  have  scruples.     One  of  the 
Rothschilds,  buying  a  paper  from  him  at  the  Piccadilly 

67 


London   Streets 

end  of  Park  Lane,  put  a  florin  into  his  hand.  "  I  was  ( 
worried,"  said  Francis,  u  lest  he  thought  it  was  a  penny, 
and  tried  to  catch  him  up  in  the  street  crowd.  But  he 
was  gone,  and  it  worried  me."  Years  later  the  news  of 
that  Rothschild's  death  was  read  out  at  a  meal  at  our  house 
in  Palace  Court.  Francis  heard,  and  dropped  his  spoon, 
aghast.     "Then  I  can  never  repay  him!"  he  cried. 

For  a  time  a  few  shillings  might  have  been  his  each 
week  for  the  fetching ;  but  he  did  not  fetch  them. 
An  allowance,  sufficient  to  lodge  and  feed  him,  and 
insufficient  to  do  either  fully,  was  sent  to  him  by  his 
father  at  a  reading-room  called,  it  is  thought,  the 
"Clarendon,"  in  the  Strand.  The  more  he  needed  it 
the  greater  worry  would  it  seem  to  collect  it.  Fear  lest 
it  were  not  there  ;  fear  lest  he  should  be  refused  it 
because  of  his  rags,  and,  finally,  an  illusory  certainty — 
the  certainty  of  dejection — that  it  had  been  discontinued, 
prevented  him,  until  at  last,  through  his  default,  it  did 
really  cease. 

He  had  the  words  of  the  Proverb  by  heart — "  Give  me 
neither  poverty  nor  riches  ;  feed  me  with  the  food  con- 
venient for  me  " — but  he  would  rather  say  his  prayer  in 
the  street  than  ask  for  his  allowance  in  the  "  Clarendon." 
He  was  willing  to  starve  both  ways  :  he  wrote  out  for 
his  comfort :  "  Even  in  the  night-time  of  the  soul  wisdom 
remains." 

In  addition  to  the  allowance  there  were  relatives  and 
friends  to  whom  Francis  might  have  gone,  if  assistance 
in  his  need  had  been  part  of  his  scheme.  Besides  those 
with  whom  he  stayed  during  his  examinations  in  London, 
there  was  a  Catholic  relative  who  had  an  establishment 
for  stationery  off  the  Strand  (he  was  not  asked  for  so 
much  as  a  pencil),  and  who  died  in  Church  Passage, 
Chancery  Lane,  about  1891  ;  his  paternal  grandmother, 
then  an  old  lady,  lived  in  City  Road,  and  Edward  Healy 
Thompson  had  resided  in  Hinde  Street,  Manchester 
Square,  and  made  many  town  friends. 

68 


Delirium 

The  time  came  when  he  had  no  lodging  ;  when  the 
nights  were  an  agony  of  prevented  sleep,  and  the  days 
long  blanks  of  half-warmth  and  half-ease.  After  seven 
nights  and  days  of  this  kind  he  is  deep  immersed  in 
insensibility.  Pain,  its  own  narcotic,  throbs  to  painless- 
ness. Touch  and  sight  and  hearing  are  brokenly  and 
dimly  experienced,  save  when  some  unknown  touch 
switches  on  the  lights  of  full  consciousness.  Sensation 
is  still  painful,  but  disjointedly,  impotently.  When  a 
cart  jolts  by  the  noise  of  its  wheels  comes  to  him  long 
after — or  before — he  troubles  to  move  out  of  reach  of 
the  shafts — the  yell  of  the  driver  seems  to  have  no  part 
in  the  incident.  He  knows  not  if  it  came  from  that 
or  from  another  quarter.  He  sees  things  pass  as 
silently  as  the  figures  on  a  cinematograph  screen  ;  one 
set  of  nerves,  out  of  time  and  on  another  plane,  respond 
to  things  heard.  The  boys  now  running  at  one  end 
of  the  alley,  in  front  of  him,  are  behind  him  the  next, 
and  their  cries  seem  to  come  from  any  quarter  and  at 
random.  Is  it  that  they  move  too  quickly  for  him  or 
that  he  unknowingly  is  wheeling  about  in  his  walk,  or 
that  London  herself  spins  round  him  ?  For  hours  he 
has  stood  in  one  place,  or  paced  one  patch  of  pavement, 
as  if  his  feet  were  trapped  in  the  lines  between  the 
stones.  He  remembers  that,  as  a  child,  he  had  made 
rules,  treading  only  on  the  spaces,  or  only  on  the  line 
of  the  pattern  ;  now  they  make  much  stricter  bounds. 
He  is  tied  to  the  few  slabs  of  stone  that  fill  the  space 
beneath  his  archway.  It  seems  dreadfully  perilous  to 
move  beyond  them,  and  he  sways  within  their  territory 
as  if  they  edged  a  precipice.  And  then,  he  knows  not 
how  or  why,  his  weakness  has  passed,  and  he  is  drift- 
ing along  the  streets,  not  wearily,  but  with  dreadful  ease, 
with  no  hope  of  having  sufficient  resolution  to  halt.  Time 
matters  as  little  to  him  as  the  names  of  the  streets,  and 
the  very  faces  of  the  clocks  present,  to  his  thinking,  not 
pictures  of  time  and  motion,  but  stationary,  dead  counte- 

69 


London   Streets 

nances.  Noting  that  the  hands  of  one  have  moved,  he 
wonders  at  it  only  because  its  view  of  the  passage  of  time 
is  so  laughably  at  variance  with  his  own.  Had  it  marked 
a  minute  since  he  had  last  looked,  or  a  whole  day,  he 
would  not  have  been  surprised,  but  the  foolish  half-hour 
it  told  of  is  absurd.  His  time  leaped  or  paused,  while 
the  clock  went  with  lying  regularity.  The  street-names, 
too,  deceived  him ;  they  were  unfamiliar  in  most 
familiar  places  ;  or  they  showed  well-known  names  on 
impossible  corners.  He  seemed  to  be  spinning,  like  a 
falling  leaf,  and  tossed  by  unseen  winds  of  direction. 
Oxford  Street  was  short  and  narrow ;  Wardour  Street 
big  enough  to  hold  the  tribes  of  Israel,  and  the  houses 
of  it  as  high,  he  guessed,  though  he  dared  not  lift  his 
head  to  see,  as  the  divided  waves  of  the  Red  Sea.  Out 
of  confusion  came  a  voice,  "  Is  your  soul  saved  ?  "  It 
broke  in  upon  his  half-consciousness  as  the  school  gong 
wakes  the  boy.  The  mantle  of  protecting  delirium  fell 
away ;  the  voice  broke  in  upon  his  privacy,  threatening 
his  reserves,  seeking  the  confidences  of  the  confessional. 
"  What  right  have  you  to  ask  me  that  question  ?  "  he 
replied. 

To  one  who  had  spent  a  fortnight  of  nights  on  the 
streets,  Mr.  McMaster  and  family,  standing  forth 
against  the  comfortable  background  of  shop,  work- 
rooms, and  parlour,  should  have  loomed  large.  But 
what  the  rescued  man  thought  worth  telling  of  the  in- 
cident of  rescue  was  that  in  Wardour  Street  some  one 
approached  and  asked  him",  in  the  resented  voice  of  the 
intruder,  if  his  soul  were  saved,  and  that  he,  clothed 
in  the  regimentals  of  the  ragged,  and  with  as  much 
military  sternness  of  voice  and  gesture  as  might  be, 
made  answer.  Nothing  seemed  so  important  to  him 
as  the  rebuff  he  imagined  he  had  administered  to  a 
stranger  threatening  his  privacy.  He  also  recounted 
that  the  other  then  said  :  "  If  you  won't  let  me  save 
your    soul,   let   me   save  your   body,"    and  a    compact 

70 


Help  at  Hand 

was  made  on  terms  agreeable  to  his  dignity.  But  it 
is  probable  that  it  was  entered  upon  with  greater  zest  by 
Mr.  McMaster  the  enthusiast,  churchwarden,  and  boot- 
maker, than  by  the  indifferent  poet,  to  whom  it  seemed 
to  matter  little  whether  he  were  rescued  or  not  rescued. 
Francis  was  as  little  eager  for  this  help  as  he  was,  two 
years  later,  for  my  father's. 

Francis  recounted  little  more  than  the  reproof  and 
the  fact  that  his  new  master  was  kind  to  him.  But  did 
he  forget,  do  you  think,  the  least  detail  of  the  shop  in 
Panton  Street,1  or  his  companions  there  ?  Did  he 
forget  Mr.  McMaster  the  elder,  or  Mr.  McMaster  the 
brother,  or  the  nieces,  or  the  assistants,  or  Lucy  ?  It 
is  because  he  could  not  forget  that  one  must  accept  his 
account  of  the  first  encounter.  The  rescuer  remembers 
it  as  happening  in  the  Strand,  but  Thompson,  who  says 
Wardour  Street,  seems  the  surer  witness. 

Before  taking  him  into  his  employ  at  his  bootmaker's 
shop,  No.  14  Panton  Street,  Mr.  McMaster  wrote  in 
August,  1886,  to  the  Superintendent  of  Police  at  Ashton- 
under-Lyne  asking  if  Francis  Joseph  was,  as  he  stated, 
the  son  of  a  Dr.  Charles  Thompson  of  that  place. 
Finding  this  to  be  the  case,  he  secured  a  lodging  for 
Francis  in  Southampton  Row,  clothed  him,  and  with 
some  hope,  at  first,  set  him  to  work.  It  was  rather 
later  that  he  communicated  with  Francis's  father,  who 
had  been  absent  from  Ashton  on  a  holiday. 

I   learn  that  Mr.   McMaster  was  much  interested  in 

1  Here  is  a  minor  clue  to  the  region  of  London  best  mapped  out  in  his 
mind.  From  the  Academy,  1900,  he  tore  Mr.  Whitten's  review  of  an  atlas 
of  London,  in  which  a  comment  is  made  on  the  restrictions  of  the  scale — 
three  inches  to  the  mile  ;  so  that  "York  Street,  Covent  Garden,  is  merged  in 
Tavistock  Street ;  and  Panton  Street,  Haymarket,  and  its  short  continuation, 
Spur  Street,are  marked  but  not  named."  When  Francis  does  not  dog  de  Quincey 
he  is  at  the  heel  of  Coleridge.  Each  had  gone  for  a  soldier ;  both  were 
accosted  with  friendship  in  London.  The  Strand  is  remembered  as  the  place 
where  Coleridge  was,  as  a  youth,  once  walking  in  abstraction  with  waving 
arms,  to  find  himself  with  his  hand  in  a  pedestrian's  pocket  and  accused  of 
attempted  thieving.  "  I  thought,  sir,  I  was  swimming  in  the  Hellespont," 
he  explained,  and  made  a  friend  only  less  valuable  than  Mr.  McMaster. 

71 


London  ..Streets 

assisting  the  unfortunate.  If  he  says  "Thompson  was 
my  only  failure,"  it  means  that  he  was  careful  and  useful 
in  the  rescuing  of  young  men,  particular  in  awarding 
his  charity,  and  strict  in  enforcing  reform.  The 
men  he  cared  for  learned  the  trade  of  boot-making, 
possibly,  and  had  been  known  to  sing  in  the  choir  of 
St.  Martin's  Church,  or  to  do  other  reputable  deeds. 
They  were  civil-spoken  men,  or  learnt  to  be,  and 
tidy,  whereas  Francis  would  raise  his  voice,  Mr. 
McMaster  remembers — would  shout,  as  his  only  breach 
of  good  manners — in  medical  and  other  arguments  ;  was 
a  Catholic,  and  therefore  not  a  church-goer  in  the  ordi- 
nary sense,  and  was,  of  course,  incapable  of  work.  How 
did  Mr.  McMaster  succeed  so  well  with  his  only  failure  ? 
It  is  to  his  exceeding  credit  that  he  accepted  Francis 
on  the  terms  that  were  inevitable  in  accepting  a  waif 
subject  to  accidents  and  unpunctual.  Francis  would 
discuss  literature  and  medicine,  or  be  silent,  or  write, 
always  in  sight  of  the  hammering  and  sewing  group  in 
the  workroom  behind  the  shop.  In  the  delivery  of 
goods  and  the  general  running  of  messages  he  did  ill 
the  duties  of  a  boy  of  twelve.  And  yet  he  was  liked, 
and  respected  as  well  as  pitied.  His  dignity  and  gentle- 
ness gave  him  the  name  of  a  gentleman  among  friends 
where  the  title  is  a  talisman. 

It  did  not  take  long  to  discover  that  Francis  could 
neither  make  boots  nor  sell  them.  He  ran  messages, 
and  still  in  the  make-believe  of  earning  his  food  and 
lodging  and  the  five  shillings  a  week  that  were  his  wages, 
put  up  the  shutters,  as  H.  M.  Stanley,  whose  back  still 
ached  with  the  memory  when  he  came  to  write  his 
autobiography,  had  done  as  a  boy.  It  is  incredible,  to 
one  who  knew  the  hours  Francis  favoured,  that  he  was 
present  at  their  taking  down. 

His  master  has  interesting  memories.  He  remembers 
the  meeting  in  the  street ;  he  remembers  that  he 
was  informed  immediately  that  Francis  was  a  Catholic, 

72 


The  Outcast's  Devotions 

and  he  remembers  the  crucifix  upon  the  wall  of  the 
bedroom  in  Southampton  Row,  and  the  medal  round 
the  collarless  neck.  "  I  knew  he  was  of  another  belief — 
not  a  bit  of  difference  !  I  am  a  Church  of  England 
man  myself — Churchwarden,  and  on  the  Council — 
an  average  Church  of  England  man,  I  trust.  But  not 
a  bit  of  difference ! "  he  repeats,  and  has  it  too  that 
Francis  "said  his  Mass — always  said  his  Mass — at 
night."  About  Sunday  church-goings  he  is  uncertain, 
having  the  impression  that  Francis  no  longer  held  with 
the  priests  of  his  Church.  "There  was  something 
between  him  and  the  priests.  Perhaps  I  ought  not  to 
tell  you  (I  take  it  you  are  Catholics),  but  I  fancy  there 
was  something."  Mr.  McMaster's  narrative  is  here  in- 
terrupted, not  by  the  poet's  shout,  but  by  the  poet's 
record  of  his  habit  of  prayer.  Francis  writes,  in  a  note 
to  the  following  poem,  composed  years  later  :  "  It  was 
my  practice  from  the  time  I  left  college  to  pray  for  the 
lady  whom  I  was  destined  to  love — the  unknown  She. 
It  is  curious  that  even  then  I  did  not  dream  of  praying 
for  her  whom  I  was  destined  to  marry  ;  and  yet  not 
curious  :  for  already  I  previsioned  that  with  me  it  would 
be  to  love,  not  to  be  loved." 

With  dawn  and  children  risen  would  he  run, 
Which  knew  not  the  fool's  wisdom  to  be  sad, 
He  that  had  childhood  sometimes  to  be  glad, 

Before  her  window  with  the  co-mate  sun. 

At  night  his  angel's  wing  before  the  Throne 

Dropped  (and  God  smiled)  the  unnamed  name  of  Her  : 
Nor  did  she  feel  her  destinate  poet's  prayer 

Asperse  her  from  her  angel's  pinion. 

So  strangely  near  !    So  far,  that  ere  they  meet, 
The  boy  shall  traverse  with  his  bloody  feet 

The  mired  and  hungered  ways,  three  sullen  years, 
Of  the  fell  city  :  and  those  feet  shall  ooze 
Crueller  blood  through  ruinous  avenues 

Of  shattered  youth,  made  plashy  with  his  tears  ! 

73 


London  Streets 

As  full  of  love  as  scant  of  poetry ; 
Ah  !  in  the  verses  but  the  sender  see, 
And  in  the  sender,  but  his  heart,  lady  ! 

Mr.  McMaster  continues  : — "  Mr.  Thompson  was  a 
great  talker.  I  remember  him  asking  me  questions.  My 
father,  a  University  man — or  rather  a  Scottish  College 
man  .  .  .  would  talk  to  him,  very  interested."  And  his 
employer  lent  him  books  and  discussed  them,  and  had, 
as  he  remembers  it,  some  hand  in  the  making  of  an 
author.  It  was  in  his  shop  and  on  his  paper  that 
Thompson  wrote  continually.  Bulvver  Lytton  was  de- 
voured, then  as  in  later  years,  and  Francis  took  Mr. 
McMaster's  Iliad  even  as  far  as  Southampton  Row  along 
with  Josephus  and  Huxley.  "  My  Josephus  and  my 
Huxley,"  remembers  his  friend,  who  recalls,  too,  that 
he  was  "always  reading  the  Standard  Book  of  British 
Poetry!1  Francis  did  not  know  then  that  the  "little 
obscure  room  in  my  father's  poor  house,"  where  Tra- 
herne  learnt,  as  a  child  of  four,  to  be  a  poet,  was  also 
at  the  back  of  a  shoemaker's.  Children  were  of  the 
Panton  Street  household,  and  Mr.  McMaster  remembers 
Francis's  awed  but  gentle  ways  with  them.  A  niece, 
called  Rosie  Violet  or  Rosebud  by  the  family,  and  Flower 
or  Little  Flower,  as  Mr.  McMaster  remembers,  by  Francis, 
was  his  particular  friend,  and  used  to  take  his  tea  to 
him  and  walk  with  him  in  the  park.  That  there  was 
"another  lady  who  helped  him"  may  be  an  allusion  to 
the  friendship  of  the  streets. 

After  rather  more  than  three  months'  service  in  the 
shop,  it  was  arranged  that  Francis  should  go  home  for  the 
Christmas  of  1886.  There  is  not  much  to  tell  of  his 
home-coming.  Other  members  of  the  Thompson  family 
were  adepts,  like  Francis,  in  reserve,  and  it  was  practised 
rigorously  during  his  holiday.  It  was  known  that  he  had 
suffered  ;  and  his  sufferings,  or  the  occasion  of  them, 
were  no  more  to  be  spoken  of  than  misdeeds  that  had  had 

74 


He  leaves  the  Boot-shop 

their  punishment.  He  volunteered  no  account  of  himself 
and  was  asked  for  none,  it  being  supposed  that  he  had 
found  a  settled  though  humble  way  of  life  which  allowed 
the  past  to  fall  back  into  the  past.  From  his  sister  I 
learn  that  he  filled  his  place  in  the  family  saddened, 
perhaps,  but  yet  much  as  he  had  filled  it  before  he  left 
it :  affection  was  there,  on  his  side  and  on  hers. 

On  his  return  from  Manchester,  where  he  lingered — or 
was  delayed — longer  than  had  been  expected,  the  shop 
was  even  less  well  served  than  before.  He  returned  as 
from  a  bout  of  drinking,  and  with  no  regard  for  the 
things  around  him.  He  had  periodic  visitations  of 
much  more  than  customary  uselessness ;  they  were 
such  as  Mr.  McMaster  observed  in  their  approach.  He 
would  grow  very  restless  and  flushed,  and  then  retire 
into  an  equally  disconcerting  satisfaction  and  peace  of 
mind.  These,  of  course,  were  the  workings  of  opium, 
although  Mr.  McMaster  mistook  them,  as  Dr.  Thompson 
had  done  previously,  for  those  of  alcohol.  "There  were 
accidents,"  says  Mr.  McMaster,  with  some  horror  of 
details.  It  seems  Francis  had  let  the  shutter  slip  on  a 
certain  evening  of  delirium,  and,  it  is  gathered,  a  foot — 
the  foot  of  a  customer,  no  less — had  been  hurt.  What- 
ever the  immediate  cause,  Francis  had  to  leave  Panton 
Street  in  the  middle  of  January  1887.  Mr.  McMaster 
stands  an  example.  His  charity  was  of  such  exceptional 
fortune  as  commends  mankind  to  daily  good  works 
lest  great  benefits  be  left  unperformed,  lest  our  omissions 
starve  a  Francis  Thompson.  The  persuasion  of  "Ye 
did  it  unto  Me"  may  be  varied  by  "Perhaps  ye  did 
it  unto  a  Poet." 

Before  he  left,  Francis  had  sent  manuscripts,  Mr. 
McMaster  avers,  to  more  than  one  magazine  ;  for  the 
discarded  McMaster  account-books  had  all  the  while 
been  as  freely  covered  with  poetry  and  prose  as 
had  been  the  bulky  business  folios  of  Mme.  Corot, 
Marchande   de    Modes,   with   Jean    Baptiste    Camille's 

75 


London  Streets 

landscapes  of  pen  and  ink.  But  Francis  left  Panton 
Street  unanswered  ;  he  left  Panton  Street  for  less  kindly- 
thoroughfares.  Nor  did  he  ever  return,  though  imme- 
diately after  his  dismissal  he  came  to  be  in  desperate 
need  of  any  charity.  How  little  he  felt  himself  bounden 
by  the  ties  of  gratitude  or  kindly  feeling,  both  of  which 
he  felt  strongly  in  an  inactive  manner,  is  shown  in  this 
as  in  all  his  negotiations  with  his  family  and  friends. 
He  never  forgot  a  kindness  or  an  injury  (nor  failed  to 
forgive  either).  Both  meant  too  much  to  him.  If  he 
neglected  the  obligations  of  gratitude,  he  also,  by  a  hard 
habit  of  constraint  and  a  close  conscience,  kept  his 
tongue  consistently  innocent  of  recriminations,  so  that  I 
have  never  heard  him  use  really  hard  words  of  any  man. 
Mr.  McMaster  was  never  told  till  after  his  assistant's 
death  that  Francis  came  to  find  success  as  a  writer  of 
books  and  a  journalist.  That  Francis  was  fond  of 
him  might  be  gathered  in  the  few  words  in  which  he 
mentioned  him  no  less  than  in  Mr.  McMaster's  own 
account,  and  in  his  brother's,  who  says  that  Francis's 
eyes  would  follow  the  boot-maker  round  the  room  with 
a  persistence  that  made  him,  seemingly,  entirely  like  a 
fawn.  "  I  can  only  compare  him  to  a  fawn,"  declared 
the  brother  ;  and  he  "  not  the  only  one  to  notice  it !  " 

As  he  stood  on  the  threshold  of  the  shop — "Still,  as  I 
turned  inwards  to  the  echoing  chambers,  or  outwards  to 
the  wild,  wild  night,  I  saw  London  extending  her  visionary 
gate  to  receive  me,  like  some  dreadful  mouth  of  Acheron  " 
(de  Quincey's  words  became  his  own  by  right  of  succes- 
sion)— he  was  in  no  mood  to  fight  for  existence.  He 
gave  himself  to  Covent  Garden,  the  archways  and  more 
desperate  straits — "  a  flood-tide  of  disaster  " — than  he 
had  known  before. 

Jane  Eyre,  while  she  felt  the  vulture,  hunger,  sinking 
beak  and  talons  in  her  side,  knew  that  solitude  was  no 
solitude,  rest  no  rest,  and  instinct  kept  her  roaming 
round  the  village  and  its  store  of  food,  even  while  she 

76 


He  returns  to  the  Streets 

dared  not  ask  for  it.  But  that  you  are  in  a  city  of 
larders,  and  that  you  sleep  in  Covent  Garden,  the  pulse 
of  London's  kitchens,  does  not  scare  the  vulture  ;  it  is 
a  town-bird,  a  cockney  like  the  sparrow.  I  know  that 
Thompson  suffered  hunger  ;  so  much  he  told  me.  But 
he  found  no  simile  for  his  pain,  and  perhaps  Charlotte 
Bronte,  in  that  she  did  find  one,  was  as  deeply 
scarred.  Misery  is  a  bottle-imp  which  you  may  put  to 
your  lips  without  going  through  the  swing-doors  of 
experience.  Francis  came  back  through  them  with 
a  light  heart,  while  Charlotte  Bronte's  was  heavy  with 
inexperience.  Many  of  the  horrors  of  the  street 
Francis  knew  only  in  later  years,  when  the  bandages 
with  which  nature  covers  the  eyes  of  those  whom  she 
condemns  were  removed.  He  had  walked  the  battle- 
field among  bullets  and  not  known  that  one  nestled  in 
his  heart,  another  in  his  brain,  another  in  his  flesh  ; 
only  twenty  years  later  did  he  grow  weak  with  their 
poison,  and  develop  a  delirium  of  fear  of  the  sights  and 
sounds  of  London.  It  was  in  later  years  that  he  wrote  : 
"The  very  streets  weigh  upon  me.  Those  horrible 
streets,  with  their  gangrenous  multitude  blackening  ever 
into  lower  mortifications  of  humanity.  .  .  .  These  lads 
who  have  almost  lost  the  faculty  of  human  speech  :  these 
girls  whose  very  utterance  is  a  hideous  blasphemy 
against  the  sacrosanctity  of  lover's  language.  .  .  .  We 
lament  the  smoke  of  London  : — it  were  nothing  without 
the  fumes  of  congregated  evil."  x  It  was  later,  too,  that 
he  wrote  of 

the  places  infamous  to  tell, 
Where  God  wipes  not  the  tears  from  any  eyes. 

1  Of  the  despoiling  of  the   Lady    Poverty   he  writes  in   an  unpublished 
poem : — 

DEGRADED   POOR 

Lo,  at  the  first,  Lord,  Satan  took  from  Thee 
Wealth,  Beauty,  Honour,  World's  Felicity. 
Then  didst  Thou  say :  "  Let  be ; 
For  with  his  leavings  and  neglects  will  I 

77 


London  Streets 

There  is  more  in  the  same  strain  of  heated  hate  and 
distress,  but  I  quote  no  more,  in  the  belief  that  it  is  far 
from  illustrating  his  mood  when  he  was  actually  on  the 
streets.  He  had  realised  what  the  inexperienced  does 
not,  that  "  in  suffering,  intensity  has  not  long  duration  ; 
long  duration  has  not  intensity,"  or  again:  "Beyond 
the  maximum  point  of  a  delicate  nature  you  can  no 
more  get  increase  of  agony  by  increasing  its  suffering 
than  you  can  get  increase  of  tone  from  a  piano  by 
stamping  on  it.  It  would  be  an  executioner's  trick  of 
God  if  he  made  the  poet-nature  not  only  capable  of  a 
pang  where  others  feel  a  prick,  but  of  hell  where  others 
feel  purgatory."  One  learns  from  almost  the  same  page 
of  his  contradictory  notes  that  he  knew  suffering  beyond 
the  range  of  other  men's  knowledge,  but  that,  knowing 
it,  he  also  knew  the  narrow  limits  of  suffering. 

Above  all  things,  he  learnt  that  lack  of  the  world's 
goods  is  small  lack,  that  to  lose  everything  is  no  great 
loss — a  proposition  easily  proved  by  analogy  to  those 
who  have  gained  everything  and  found  it  small  gain. 
While  in  the  streets  he  had  his  tea  to  drink  and  his 
murderer  to  think  about.  It  was  in  retrospect  that  he 
beheld   misery    incarnate    in    the   outcast,    and    it   was 

Please  Me,  which  he  sets  by, — 
Of  all  disvalued,  thence  which  all  will  leave  Me, 
And  fair  to  none  but  Me,  will  not  deceive  Me." 
My  simple  Lord  !  so  deeming  erringly, 
Thou  tookest  Poverty  ; 

Who,  beautified  with  Thy  Kiss,  laved  in  Thy  streams, 
'Gan  then  to  cast  forth  gleams, 
That  all  men  did  admire 
Her  modest  looks,  her  ragged  sweet  attire 
In  which  the  ribboned  shoe  could  not  compete 
With  her  clear  simple  feet. 
But  Satan,  envying  Thee  Thy  one  ewe-lamb, 
With  Wealth,  World's  Beauty  and  Felicity 
Was  not  content,  till  last  unthought-of  she 
Was  his  to  damn. 
Thine  ingrate  ignorant  lamb 

He  won  from  Thee  ;  kissed,  spurned,  and  made  of  her 
This  thing  which  qualms  the  air — 
Vile,  terrible,  old, 

Whereat  the  red  blood  of  the  Day  runs  cold. 

78 


In  Darkest  London 

through  the  sheltering  pane  of  a  window  in  a  lodging 
that  he  saw  : — 

"  A  region  whose  hedgerows  have  set  to  brick,  whose 
soil  is  chilled  to  stone ;  where  flowers  are  sold  and 
women  ;  where  the  men  wither  and  the  stars  ;  whose 
streets  to  me  on  the  most  glittering  day  are  black. 
For  I  unveil  their  secret  meanings.  I  read  their  human 
hieroglyphs.  I  diagnose  from  a  hundred  occult  signs 
the  disease  which  perturbs  their  populous  pulses. 
Misery  cries  out  to  me  from  the  kerb-stone,  despair 
passes  me  by  in  the  ways  ;  I  discern  limbs  laden  with 
fetters  impalpable,  but  not  imponderable ;  I  hear  the 
shaking  of  invisible  lashes,  I  see  men  dabbled  with  their 
own  oozing  life.  This  contrast  rises  before  me  ;  and 
I  ask  myself  whether  there  be  indeed  an  Ormuzd  and 
an  Ahriman,  and  whether  Ahriman  be  the  stronger  of 
the  twain.  From  the  claws  of  the  sphinx  my  eyes 
have  risen  to  her  countenance  which  no  eyes  read. 

"  Because,  therefore,  I  have  these  thoughts ;  and 
because  also  I  have  knowledge,  not  indeed  great  or 
wide,  but  within  certain  narrow  limits  more  intimate 
than  most  men's,  of  this  life  which  is  not  a  life ;  to 
which  food  is  as  the  fuel  of  hunger  ;  sleep,  our  common 
sleep,  precious,  costly,  and  fallible,  as  water  in  a  wilder- 
ness ;  in  which  men  rob  and  women  vend  themselves — 
for  fourpence  ;  because  I  have  such  thoughts  and  such 
knowledge,  I  needed  not  the  words  of  our  great  Cardinal 
to  read  with  painful  sympathy  the  book  just  put  forward 
by  a  singular  personality."  1 

Of  the  things  he  heard — and  misery,  he  says,  cries  out 
from  the  kerbstone — the  laugh,  not  the  cry,  of  the  chil- 
dren familiar  with  all  evil  was  what  appalled  him  most. 
Appalling,  too,  was  the  unuttered  cry  of  children  who 
knew  not  how  to  cry  nor  why  they  had  cause.  Among 
the  notes  are  many  jottings  of  a  resolve  to  write  on  the 

1  F.  T.'s  review  of  Booth's  In  Darkest  England. 

79 


London  Streets 

young  of  the  town,  but  these  were  used  only  incidentally 
in  essays  or  letters.  Such  a  one  is  found  in  the  passage, 
of  his  study  of  Blessed  John  Baptist  de  la  Salle,  in  which 
he  states  the  case  for  Free  Education  : — 

"Think  of  it.  If  Christ  stood  amidst  your  London 
slums,  He  could  not  say  :  '  Except  ye  become  as  one  of 
these  little  children.'  Far  better  your  children  were  cast 
from  the  bridges  of  London,  than  they  should  become  as 
one  of  those  little  ones.  Could  they  be  gathered  together 
and  educated  in  the  truest  sense  of  the  word ;  could 
the  children  of  the  nation  at  large  be  so  educated  as  to 
cut  off  future  recruits  to  the  ranks  of  Darkest  England  ; 
then  it  would  need  no  astrology  to  cast  the  horoscope 
of  to-morrow.  La  tete  de  I'homme  du  peuple,  nay  rather 
de  F enfant  du  penple — around  that  sways  the  conflict. 
Who  grasps  the  child  grasps  the  future." 

He  writes  there  at  the  high  pressure  of  one  who  sees 
the  tragedy  and  must  shout  "  Help  ! " 

"  Let  those  who  are  robust  enough  not  to  take  injury 
from  the  terrible  directness  with  which  things  are 
stated  read  the  chapter  entitled  '  The  Children  of  the 
Lost.' x  For  it  drives  home  a  truth  which  I  fear  the 
English  public,  with  all  its  compassion  for  our  desti- 
tute children,  scarcely  realises,  knows  but  in  a  vague, 
general  way ;  namely,  that  they  are  brought  up  in  sin 
from  their  cradles,  that  they  know  evil  before  they  know 
good,  that  the  boys  are  ruffians  and  profligates,  the  girls 
harlots,  in  the  mother's  womb.  This,  to  me  the  most 
nightmarish  idea  in  all  the  nightmare  of  those  poor  little 
lives,  I  have  never  been  able  to  perceive  that  people  had 
any  true  grasp  on.  And  having  mentioned  it,  though 
it  is  a  subject  very  near  my  heart,  I  will  say  no  more ; 
nor  enforce  it,  as  I  might  well  do,  from  my  own  sad 
knowledge." 

1  In  Booth's  In  Darkest  England. 
80 


His   Friend 

To  the  juvenilia  of  the  London  period  belongs  a  poem 
on  an  allied  problem  of  the  streets  : — 

Hell's  gates  revolve  upon  her  yet  alive ; 

To  her  no  Christ  the  beautiful  is  nigh  : 

The  stony  world  has  daffed  His  teaching  by ; 

"  Go  !  "  saith  it ;  "  sin  on  still  that  you  may  thrive, 

Let  one  sin  be  as  queen  for  all  the  hive 

Of  sins  to  swarm  around ; " 

The  gates  of  Hell  have  shut  her  in  alive. 

It  was  not  improbably  written  while  he  was  befriended 
by  the  girl  who,  having  noticed  his  forlorn  state,  did  all 
in  her  power  to  assist  him. 

A  monastic  segregation  of  the  sexes  is  often  the  hard 
rule  of  the  outcast's  road.  Francis  had  no  other  friends 
among  the  women-folk  or  children  of  London,  and  often 
passed  months  without  having  speech  of  any  save  men. 
When  he  was  again  among  friends  and  knew  the  children 
of  Sister  So?igs  he  wrote  : — 

All  vanished  hopes,  and  all  most  hopeless  bliss 

Came  with  thee  to  my  kiss. 
And  ah  !  so  long  myself  had  strayed  afar 
From  child,  and  woman,  and  the  boon  earth's  green, 
And  all  wherewith  life's  face  is  fair  beseen  ; 

Journeying  its  journey  bare 
Five  suns,  except  of  the  all-kissing  sun 

Unkissed  of  one ; 

Almost  I  had  forgot 

The  healing  harms, 
And  whitest  witchery,  a-lurk  in  that 
Authentic  cestus  of  two  girdling  arms. 

This  girl  gave  out  of  her  scant  and  pitiable  opulence, 
consisting  of  a  room,  warmth,  and  food,  and  a  cab  thereto. 
When  the  streets  were  no  longer  crowded  with  shameful 
possibilities  she  would  think  of  the  only  tryst  that 
her  heart  regarded  and,  a  sister  of  charity,  would  take 
her  beggar  into  her  vehicle  at  the  appointed  place  and 
cherish  him  with  an  affection  maidenly  and  motherly, 

81  F 


London  Streets 

and  passionate  in  both  these  capacities.  Two  outcasts, 
they  sat  marvelling  that  there  were  joys  for  them  to 
unbury  and  to  share.  Then,  in  a  Chelsea  room  such 
as  that  of  Rossetti's  poem  would  they  sit : — 

Your  lamp,  my  Jenny,  kept  alight, 
Like  a  wise  virgin's,  all  one  night ! 
And  in  the  alcove  coolly  spread 
Glimmers  with  dawn  your  empty  bed. 

Weakness  and  confidence,  humility  and  reverence, 
were  gifts  unknown  to  her  except  at  his  hands,  and  she 
repaid  them  with  graces  as  lovely  as  a  child's,  and  as 
unhesitating  as  a  saint's.  In  his  address  to  a  child,  in  a 
later  year,  he  remembers  this  poor  girl's  childishness  : — 

Forlorn,  and  faint,  and  stark 
I  had  endured  through  watches  of  the  dark 

The  abashless  inquisition  of  each  star, 
Yea,  was  the  outcast  mark 

Of  all  those  heavenly  passers'  scrutiny  ; 
Stood  bound  and  helplessly 
For  Time  to  shoot  his  barbed  minutes  at  me ; 
Suffered  the  trampling  hoof  of  every  hour 
In  night's  slow-wheeled  car ; 
Until  the  tardy  dawn  dragged  me  at  length 
From  under  those  dread  wheels  ;  and,  bled  of  strength, 
I  waited  the  inevitable  last. 
Then  there  came  past 
A  child  ;  like  thee,  a  spring-flower ;  but  a  flower 
Fallen  from  the  budded  coronal  of  Spring, 
And  through  the  city-streets  blown  withering. 
She  passed, — 0  brave,  sad,  lovingest,  tender  thing  ! 
And  of  her  own  scant  pittance  did  she  give, 

That  I  might  eat  and  live  : 
Then  fled,  a  swift  and  trackless  fugitive. 

Therefore  I  kissed  in  thee 
The  heart  of  Childhood,  so  divine  for  me  ; 
And  her,  through  what  sore  ways 
And  what  unchildish  days. 
Borne  from  me  now,  as  then,  a  trackless  fugitive. 
Therefore  I  kissed  in  thee 
Her,  child  !  and  innocency. 
82 


"  Swift  and  Trackless   Fugitive ' 

Her  sacrifice  was  to  fly  from  him  :  learning  he  had 
found  friends,  she  said  that  he  must  go  to  them  and 
leave  her.  After  his  first  interview  with  my  father  he 
had  taken  her  his  news.  "  They  will  not  understand 
our  friendship,"  she  said,  and  then,  "  I  always  knew 
you  were  a  genius."  And  so  she  strangled  the  oppor- 
tunity ;  she  killed  again  the  child,  the  sister ;  the 
mother  had  come  to  life  within  her — she  went  away. 
Without  warning  she  went  to  unknown  lodgings  and 
was  lost  to  him.  In  "  the  mighty  labyrinths  of  London  " 
he  lay  in  wait  for  her,  nor  would  he  leave  the  streets, 
thinking  that  in  doing  so  he  would  make  a  final  severance. 
Like  de  Quincey's  Ann,  she  was  sought,  but  never  found, 
along  the  pavements  at  the  place  where  she  had  been 
used  to  find  him. 

With  de  Quincey Thompson  could  have  said,  "During 
some  years  I  hoped  that  she  did  live;  and  I  suppose 
in  the  literal  and  unrhetorical  use  of  the  word  myriad, 
I  must,  on  my  visits  to  London,  have  looked  at  myriads 
of  female  faces,  in  the  hope  of  meeting  Ann."  And, 
again,  that  this  incident  of  friendship  "more  than  any 
other,  coloured,  or  (more  truly  I  should  say)  shaped, 
moulded  and  remoulded,  composed  and  decomposed, 
the  great  body  of  opium  dreams."  Pursuit  and  search 
have  been  matters  of  much  nocturnal  and  poetic  moment ; 
such  was  Patmore's  recurring  dream  of  the  dead 
whom — 

I,  dreaming,  night  by  night  seek  now  to  see, 
And,  in  a  mortal  sorrow,  still  pursue 
Through  sordid  streets  and  lanes, 
And  houses  brown  and  bare, 
And  many  a  haggard  stair, 
Ochrous  with  ancient  stains, 
And  infamous  doors,  opening  on  hapless  rooms, 
In  whose  unhaunted  glooms 
Dead  pauper  generations,  witless  of  the  sun, 
Their  course  have  run. 

83 


London  Streets 

As  with  de  Quincey,  so  with  Patmore,  so  with  Francis. 
To  the  dream,  or  sense,  of  pursuit,  was  added  the  sus- 
picion of  balking  interference.  De  Quincey  says  that 
throughout  his  dreams  he  was  conscious  "of  some 
shadowy  malice  which  withdrew  her,  or  attempted  to 
withdraw  her,  from  restoration  and  from  hope."  And 
Patmore : — 

And  ofttimes  my  pursuit 

Is  check'd  of  its  dear  fruit 

By  things  brimful  of  hate,  my  kith  and  kin, 

Furious  that  I  should  keep 

Their  forfeit  power  to  weep. 

Pursuit  circles  after  flight,  and  flight  circles  before 
pursuit,  and  they  go  about  and  meet  and  are  confounded 
— as  when  children  play  round  a  tree — in  the  dreams 
that  were  common  to  de  Quincey  and  Thompson,  in 
the  "Daughter  of  Lebanon"  of  the  one  and  "The 
Hound  of  Heaven  "  of  the  other. 

It  was  loyalty,  the  loyalty  of  one  who  knew  what 
benefits  he  bestowed  in  receiving  the  alms  of  his  forlorn 
friend,  rather  than  love,  that  kept  him  so  fast  to  his  tryst 
with  her  that  even  when  the  chance  offered  for  him  to 
leave  the  streets,  he  refused  at  first  to  do  that  which 
would  put  an  end  to  the  possibility  of  their  meetings. 
But  he  had  not  yet  loved,  nor  met  her  whom  he  was 
destined  to  love — the  unknown  She  for  whom  in 
Manchester  he  had  prayed  every  night. 

In  an  account  of  charities  among  the  outcasts  he 
quotes:  "To  be  nameless  in  worthy  deeds  exceeds  an 
infamous  history.  The  Canaanitish  woman  lives  more 
happily  without  a  name  than  Herodias  with  one." 


84 


CHAPTER   V:    THE    DISCOVERY 

A  rally,  probably  the  result  of  a  gift  from  Manchester, 
came  about  in  the  latter  half  of  February  1887.  I  quote 
his  own  words  :  "  With  a  few  shillings  to  give  me  breath- 
ing space,  I  began  to  decipher  and  put  together  the 
half-obliterated  manuscript  of  <  Paganism.'  I  came  simul- 
taneously to  my  last  page  and  my  last  halfpenny  ;  and 
went  forth  to  drop  the  MS.  in  the  letter-box  of  Merry 
England.1  Next  day  I  spent  the  halfpenny  on  two  boxes 
of  matches,  and  began  the  struggle  for  life." 

This  was  the  covering  letter  to  my  father,  its  editor  : — 

u  Feb.  2yd,  '87. — Dear  Sir, — In  enclosing  the  accom- 
panying article  for  your  inspection  I  must  ask  pardon 
for  the  soiled  state  of  the  manuscript.  It  is  due,  not  to 
slovenliness,  but  to  the  strange  places  and  circumstances 
under  which  it  has  been  written.  For  me,  no  less  than 
Parolles,  the  dirty  nurse  experience  has  something 
fouled.  I  enclose  stamped  envelope  for  a  reply,  since 
I  do  not  desire  the  return  of  the  manuscript,  regarding 
your  judgment  of  its  worthlessness  as  quite  final.  I  can 
hardly  expect  that  where  my  prose  fails  my  verse  will 
succeed.  Nevertheless,  on  the  principle  of  'Yet  will 
I  try  the  last,'  I  have  added  a  few  specimens  of  it,  with 

1  Merry  England  was  a  magazine  he  had  known  in  Manchester,  and 
noted  especially  during  his  Christmas  holiday  at  home.  His  uncle,  Edward 
Healy  Thompson,  was  already  a  contributor,  and  among  others  were 
Cardinal  Manning,  Lionel  Johnson,  Hilaire  Belloc,  May  Probyn,  St.  John 
Adcock,  Sir  William  Butler,  Coulson  Kernahan,  Alice  Corkran,  Coventry 
Patmore,  W.  H.  Hudson,  Katharine  Tynan,  J.  G.  Snead  Cox,  Aubrey  de 
Vere,  Wilfrid  Scawen  Blunt,  Father  R.  F.  Clark,  J.  Eastwood  Kidson,  and 
Bernard  Whelan. 

85 


The  Discovery 

the  off  chance  that  one  may  be  less  poor  than  the  rest. 
Apologising  very  sincerely  for  any  intrusion  on  your 
valuable  time,  I  remain  yours  with  little  hope, 

Francis  Thompson. 

Kindly  address  your  rejection  to  the  Charing  Cross 
Post  Office." 

Francis  had  more  than  remembered  the  existence  of 
the  magazine  and  its  editor.  "  I  was  myself  virtually  his 
pupil  and  his  wife's  long  before  I  knew  him.  He  has 
in  my  opinion — an  opinion  of  long  standing — done  more 
than  any  man  in  these  latter  days  to  educate  Catholic 
literary  opinion,"  he  wrote  to  Manchester  soon  after  his 
first  appearance  in  the  magazine.  He  knew  the  target 
at  which  he  aimed. 

"  Paganism  Old  and  New "  is  written  in  the  un- 
harassed  manner  of  a  man  whose  style,  and  cuffs,  had 
been  kept  in  order  at  the  Savile  Club.  But  he  had  no 
backing  of  library  and  chef  to  give  him  the  courage  of 
his  fine  sentences  ;  he  was  the  man  selling  matches  in 
the  gutter  and  sharpening  his  pencil  on  the  kerb-stone. 
The  beauty  of  the  circumstances  of  Pagan  life,  its  pro- 
cessional maidens,  "  shaking  a  most  divine  dance  from 
their  feet,"  its  theatres  unroofed  to  the  smokeless  sky — 
with  these,  he  says,  the  advocates  of  a  revived  Paganism 
contrast  the  conditions  of  to-day  :  "the  cold  formalities 
of  an  outworn  worship  ;  our  ne  plus  ultra  of  pageantry, 
a  Lord  Mayor's  show ;  the  dryadless  woods  regarded 
chiefly  as  potential  timber ;  the  grimy  streets,  the  grimy 
air,  the  disfiguring  statues,  the  Stygian  crowd ;  the 
temple  to  the  reigning  goddess  Gelasma,  which  mocks 
the  name  of  theatre  ;  last  and  worst,  the  fatal  degrada- 
tion of  popular  perception  which  has  gazed  so  long  on 
ugliness  that  it  takes  her  to  its  bosom.  In  our  capitals 
the  very  heavens  have  lost  their  innocence.  Aurora 
may  rise  over  our  cities,  but  she  has  forgotten  how  to 
blush."     From  the  pavement  where  the  East  sweeps  the 

86 


Dead-letter  Office 

soot  in  eddies  round  his  ankles,  he  protests  :  "  Pagan 
Paganism  was  not  poetical.  No  pagan  eye  ever 
visioned  the  nymphs  of  Shelley."  "  In  the  name  of  all 
the  Muses,  what  treason  against  Love  and  Beauty  !  "  he 
cries  against  Catullus,  Propertius,  and  Ovid,  for  the  arid 
eroticism  that  was  satisfied  to  write  of  love  without  tribute 
to  the  colour  of  a  lady's  eyes.  For  contrast,  he  quotes 
Rossetti's — 

Her  eyes  were  deeper  than  the  depth 

Of  waters  stilled  at  even  ; 

Wordsworth's  "  Eyes  like  stars  of  twilight  fair "  ; 
Collins's  Pity  "  with  eyes  of  dewy  light  "  ;  Shelley's  "  Thy 
sweet-child  sleep,  the  filmy-eyed."  And  of  the  fair 
love  of  Dante  and  other  Christian  poets  he  makes  sweet 
and  loyal  praises.  He  was  the  lover  to  write  an  essay 
in  defence  of  the  social  order  that  denied  him  love, 
sleep,  pity,  and  the  eyes  of  any  lady.  It  was  the  essay, 
too,  of  a  man  physically  hungry.  He  supped  full,  but 
with  fancies. 

Thompson's  manuscripts,  most  uninviting  in  outward 
aspect,  were  pigeon-holed,  unread  by  a  much-occupied 
editor  for  six  months — were  then  released,  read,  and 
estimated  at  their  worth.  The  sanity  of  the  essay  was 
proof  enough  of  the  genius  of  Thompson's  inspiration 
against  the  evidence  in  some  of  the  poems  of  another 
inspiration — that  of  drugs.  My  father  and  mother  (the 
A.  M.  and  W.  M.  of  following  pages)  decided  to  accept 
the  essay  and  a  poem,  and  to  seek  the  author.  To  this 
end  my  father  wrote  a  letter  addressed  to  Charing  Cross 
Post  Office,  stating  the  intention  of  printing  some  of  the 
manuscript,  and  asking  Francis  to  call  for  a  proof  and 
to  discuss  the  chances  of  future  work.  To  that  letter 
came  no  reply  and  publication  was  postponed,  but  when 
at  last  his  letter  was  returned  through  the  dead-letter 
office,  he  printed  the  "  Passion  of  Mary  "  as  the  best  way  of 
getting  into  communication  with  the  author.     The  poem 

87 


The  Discovery 

appeared  in  Merry  England  for  April  1888,  and  on  the 
14th  my  father  received  the  following  letter  : — 

"April  14th,  1888.— Dear  Sir,— In  the  last  days  of 
February  or  the  first  days  of  March,  1887  (my  memory 
fails  me  as  to  the  exact  date),  I  forwarded  to  you  for  your 
magazine  a  prose  article,  "  Paganism  Old  and  New"  (or 
"Ancient  and  Modern,"  for  I  forget  which  wording  I 
adopted),  and  accompanied  it  by  some  pieces  of  verse, 
on  the  chance  that  if  the  prose  failed,  some  of  the  verse 
might  meet  acceptance.  I  enclosed  a  stamped  envelope 
for  a  reply,  since  (as  I  said)  I  did  not  desire  the  return 
of  the  manuscript.  Imprudently,  perhaps,  instead  of 
forwarding  the  parcel  through  the  post,  I  dropped  it 
with  my  own  hand  into  the  letter-box  of  43  Essex  Street. 
There  was  consequently  no  stamp  on  it,  since  I  did  not 
think  a  stamp  would  be  necessary  under  the  circum- 
stances. I  asked  you  to  address  your  answer  to  the 
Charing  Cross  Post  Office.  To  be  brief,  from  that  day 
to  this,  no  answer  has  ever  come  into  my  hands.  And 
yet,  more  than  a  twelve-month  since  the  forwarding 
of  the  manuscript,  I  am  now  informed  that  one  of  the 
copies  of  verse  which  I  submitted  to  you  {i.e.  'The 
Passion  of  Mary  ')  is  appearing  in  this  month's  issue  of 
Merry  England.  Such  an  occurrence  I  can  only  ex- 
plain to  myself  in  one  way,  viz.,  that  some  untoward 
accident  cut  off  your  means  of  communicating  with  me. 
To  suppose  otherwise — to  suppose  it  intentional — would 
be  to  wrong  your  known  honour  and  courtesy.  I  have 
no  doubt  that  your  explanation,  when  I  receive  it,  will 
be  entirely  satisfactory  to  me.  I  therefore  enclose  a 
stamped  and  addressed  envelope  for  an  answer,  hoping 
that  you  will  recompense  me  for  my  long  delay  by  the 
favour  of  an  early  reply.  In  any  case,  however  long 
circumstances  may  possibly  delay  your  reply,  it  will  be 
sure  of  reaching  me  at  the  address  I  have  now  given. — 
I  remain,  yours  faithfully, 

Francis  Joseph  Thompson. 
88 


The  Chemist's  Capture 

11 P-S. — Doubtless,  when  I  received  no  answer,  I  ought 
to  have  written  again.  My  excuse  must  be  that  a  flood- 
tide  of  misfortune  rolled  over  me,  leaving  me  no  leisure 
to  occupy  myself  with  what  I  regarded  as  an  attempt 
that  had  hopelessly  failed.  Hence  my  entire  subsequent 
silence." 

To  this  my  father  answered  with  an  explanation  and 
a  repetition  of  his  invitation  to  Francis  to  arrange  for 
regular  work,  and  despatched  his  answer  by  a  special 
messenger  to  the  address  given,  a  chemist's  shop  in 
Drury  Lane.  The  chemist's  manner  of  accepting 
responsibility  for  the  safe  delivery  of  the  letter  was  dis- 
couraging. He  said  that  Thompson  sometimes  called 
for  letters,  but  that  he  knew  little  of  him.  After  a  few 
days  during  which  nothing  was  heard  my  father  went 
himself  in  search.  His  obvious  eagerness  prompted  a 
query  from  the  man  behind  the  counter  :  "  Are  you  a 
relative  ?  he  owes  me  three-and-ninepence."  With  that 
paid  and  a  promise  of  ten-and-sixpence  if  he  produced 
the  poet,  he  agreed  to  do  his  best,  and,  many  days  after, 
my  father,  being  in  his  workroom,  was  told  that  Mr. 
Thompson  wished  to  see  him.  "  Show  him  up,"  he 
said,  and  was  left  alone. 

Then  the  door  opened,  and  a  strange  hand  was  thrust 
in.  The  door  closed,  but  Thompson  had  not  entered. 
Again  it  opened,  again  it  shut.  At  the  third  attempt  a 
waif  of  a  man  came  in.  No  such  figure  had  been  looked 
for  ;  more  ragged  and  unkempt  than  the  average  beggar, 
with  no  shirt  beneath  his  coat  and  bare  feet  in  broken 
shoes,  he  found  my  father  at  a  loss  for  words.  tl  You 
must  have  had  access  to  many  books  when  you  wrote 
that  essay,"  was  what  he  said.  "That,"  said  Thompson, 
his  shyness  at  once  replaced  by  an  acerbity  that 
afterwards  became  one  of  the  most  familiar  of  his  never- 
to-be-resented  mannerisms,  tl  that  is  precisely  where  the 
essay  fails.     I  had  no  books  by  me  at  the  time  save 

89 


The   Discovery 

Aeschylus  and  Blake."  There  was  little  to  be  done  for 
him  at  that  interview  save  the  extraction  of  a  promise  to 
call  again.  He  made  none  of  the  confidences  character- 
istic of  a  man  seeking  sympathy  and  alms.  He  was 
secretive  and  with  no  eagerness  for  plans  for  his  benefit, 
and  refused  the  offer  of  a  small  weekly  sum  that  would 
enable  him  to  sleep  in  a  bed  and  sit  at  a  table.  I  know 
of  no  man,  and  can  imagine  none,  to  whom  another 
can  so  easily  unburden  himself  of  uneasiness  and 
formalities  as  to  my  father.  To  him  the  poor  and  the 
rich  are,  as  the  fishes  and  the  flames  to  St.  Francis,  his 
brothers  and  his  friends  at  sight,  even  if  these  are  shy 
as  fishes  and  sightless  as  flame.  But  the  impression  of 
the  visit  on  my  father  was  of  a  meeting  that  did  not  end  in 
great  usefulness — so  much  was  indicated  by  a  manner 
schooled  in  concealments.  But  Francis  came  again,  and 
again,  and  then  to  my  father's  house  in  Kensington. 
Of  the  falsity  of  the  impression  given  by  his  manner, 
his  poetry  in  the  address  to  his  host's  little  girl  is  the 
proof : — 

Yet  is  there  more,  whereat  none  guesseth,  love  ! 

Upon  the  ending  of  my  deadly  night 
(Whereof  thou  hast  not  the  surmise,  and  slight 
Is  all  that  any  mortal  knows  thereof), 
Thou  wert  to  me  that  earnest  of  day's  light, 
When,  like  the  back  of  a  gold-mailed  saurian 

Heaving  its  slow  length  from  Nilotic  slime, 
The  first  long  gleaming  fissure  runs  Aurorian 

Athwart  the  yet- dun  firmament  of  prime. 
Stretched  on  the  margin  of  the  cruel  sea 
Whence  they  had  rescued  me, 
With  faint  and  painful  pulses  was  I  lying  ; 
Not  yet  discerning  well 
If  I  had  'scaped,  or  were  an  icicle, 

Whose  thawing  is  its  dying. 
Like  one  who  sweats  before  a  despot's  gate, 
Summoned  by  some  presaging  scroll  of  fate, 
And  knows  not  whether  kiss  or  dagger  wait ; 
And  all  so  sickened  is  his  countenance 

90 


He  Hesitates 

The  courtiers  buzz,  "  Lo,  doomed  !  "  and  look  at  him  askance  : — 

At  fate's  dread  portal  then 

Even  so  stood  I,  I  ken, 
Even  so  stood  I,  between  a  joy  and  fear, 
And  said  to  mine  own  heart,  "  Now,  if  the  end  be  here  !  " 

In  the  last  four  lines  is  probably  an  instance  of  his 
habitual  appropriation  of  things  seen  for  his  poetic 
images.  If  the  door  of  my  father's  room  is  here  pro- 
moted to  a  part  in  Sister  Songs,  it  takes  its  place  with 
the  clock  of  Covent  Garden,  the  arrowy  minute-hand 
of  which  Mr.  Shane  Leslie  has  remarked  as  suggesting 
Thompson's  description  of  himself  when  he 

Stood  bound  and  helplessly 
For  Time  to  shoot  his  barbed  minutes  at  me. 

In  the  continuation  of  the  same  passage  is  found 
another  example  : — 

Suffered  the  trampling  hoof  of  every  hour 

In  night's  slow-wheeled  car  ; 
Until  the  tardy  dawn  dragged  me  at  length 
From  under  those  dread  wheels  ;  and,  bled  of  strength, 

I  waited  the  inevitable  last. 

Even  before  he  was  knocked  down  by  a  cab,  as 
happened  to  him  later,  the  heavy  traffic  of  Covent 
Garden,  harassing  the  straggler  in  the  gutter,  may 
well  have  been  to  him  a  type  of  danger  and  fears. 

The  idea  of  rescue  came  slowly  and  doubtfully  to 
Francis,  who  was  far  less  ready  than  my  father  to 
believe  that  he  was  fitted  for  the  writing  career. 
Their  first  talks  were  of  books  ;  of  his  history  he  said 
nothing.  He  was  willing  to  tell  of  the  poets  he  had 
read  in  the  Guildhall  Library,  until  the  police,  being, 
as  he  said,  against  him,  barred  the  entrance.  He  was 
willing,  too,  that  anything  he  had  written  should  be 
published,  and  bring  temporary  wealth  ;  but  reluctant 

91 


The   Discovery 

to  admit  that  he  might  become  a  worker  and  quit  the 
streets — so  fixedly  reluctant  that  some  strong  reason 
was  conjectured.  He  would  visit  my  father,  then  living 
in  Kensington,  but  it  was  long  before  he  would  accept 
substantial  hospitalities  ;  coming  in  the  evening  or  after- 
noon, he  would  leave  to  return  to  his  calling — literally  a 
calling — of  cabs.  That  he  was  also  during  this  time  either 
parting  with  or  searching  for  his  Ann  is  not  unlikely. 
He  took  his  reprieve  as  he  had  taken  his  doom  ;  he 
went  frightened  and  brave  at  once,  at  war  with  peace,  at 
peace  with  war.  With  his  hesitations,  it  was  more  than 
six  months  later  that  he  wrote  anew  for  Merry  England, 
in  the  November  issue  of  which  appeared  "  Bunyan  in  the 
Light  of  Modern  Criticism  "  ;  his  three  previous  appear- 
ances, in  April,  May,  and  June,  with  the  "Passion  of 
Mary,"  "  Dream  Tryst,"  and"  Paganism  Old  and  New," 
having  exhausted  the  possible  things  among  those  first 
submitted.  He  was  not  an  absentee  because  he  could  not 
write  better  than  the  oldest  hand  the  articles  exactly 
fitted  for  Merry  England.  The  intention  declared  in 
an  early  number  of  my  father's  magazine  was  to  give 
voice  to  a  renascence  of  happiness  ;  "  We  shall  try  to 
revive  in  our  own  hearts,  and  in  the  hearts  of  others, 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  Christian  Faith."  This  enthu- 
siasm was  to  inform  essays  on  social  problems  and 
essays  in  literary  and  artistic  criticism,  and  an  optimistic 
editor  had  told  his  contributors  to  recover  the  humour, 
and  good  humour,  of  the  Saints  and  Fathers.  "Pagan- 
ism Old  and  New,"  in  which  it  was  sought  to  expose  the 
fallacy  of  searching  for  love  of  beauty  and  sweetness 
in  the  pagan  mythology,  and  to  reveal  the  essential 
modernity,  and  even  Christianity,  of  Keats'  and  Shelley's 
pagan  beauties,  was  a  triumph  of  journalistic  obedience 
and  appropriateness. 

It  ends  :  "Bring  back  even  the  best  age  of  Paganism, 
and  you  smite  beauty  on  the  cheek.  But  you  cannot 
bring  back  then,  the  best  age  of  Paganism,  the  age  when 

92 


Making  of  a  Poet 

Paganism  was  a  faith.     None  will  again  behold  Apollo 
in  the  forefront  of  the  morning,  or  see  Aphrodite  in  the 
upper  air  loose  the  long  lustre  of  her  golden  locks.     But 
you  may  bring   back — dii  avertant  omen — the  Paganism 
of  the  days  of  Pliny,  and  Statius,  and  Juvenal.  .  .  .  This 
is   the    Paganism    which    is    formidable,    and    not   the 
antique  lamp   whose  feeding  oil  is  spent,  whose  light 
has    not    outlasted   the    damps    of   its  long   sepulture." 
This   he   wrote,   who  might   have   been    exercising    his 
knowledge  of  ignominy  in  a  Ventre  de  Londres  or  at  least 
in  such  a  book  as  the  memorable  Rowton  House  Rhymes. 
The  streets,  somehow,  had  nurtured  a  poet  and  trained 
a    journalist.     He    had   gone    down    into    poverty    so 
absolute  that  he  was  often  without  pen  and  paper,  and 
now  emerged  a  pressman.     Neither  his  happiness,  nor 
his  tenderness,  nor  his  sensibility  had  been  marred,  like 
his  constitution,  by  his  experiences.     To  be  the  target  of 
such  pains  as  it  is  the  habit  of  the  world  to  deplore  as 
the  extreme  of  disaster,  and  yet  to  keep  alive  the  young 
flame  of  his  poetry ;  to  be  under  compulsion  to  watch 
the  ignominies  of  the  town,  and  yet  never  to  be  nor  to 
think  himself  ignominious  ;   to  establish  the  certitude  of 
his  virtue  ;   to   keep   flourishing  an   infinite   tenderness 
and  capability  for  delicacies  and  gentilezze  of  love — these 
were  the  triumphs  of  his  immunity.     A  mother  not  yet 
delivered  of  her  child  must  be  protected  from  all  ills  of 
mind  and  body  lest  they  do  injury  to  the  delicate  and 
susceptible  life  within  her.     Horrors  must  not  be  spoken 
in  her  presence  ;    it  has  been  held  fit  that  she  should 
have  pictures   about  her   bed   of   fair  infants   that  her 
thoughts  might  instruct  the  features  of  the  unborn  child 
in   good-favouredness.     How   otherwise  was   the   poet 
dealt  with,  whose  intellect  was  the  womb  of  the  word  ! 
The  making   of  Viola,  as  he  tells  it,  is  a  sweeter  busi- 
ness than  the  making   of  a  poet— of  the  maker  of  a 
"  Making  of  Viola  " — but  not  more  natural  and  inevitable. 
Thompson's   muse   rose  intact,  but  trailing  bloody  in- 

93 


The  Discovery 

signia  of  battle  ;  his  spirit  rose  from  the  penal  waters 
fresh  as  Botticelli's  Venus.  It  had  not  been  more 
marvellous  if  Sandro's  lady,  with  cool  cheeks,  floating 
draperies,  and  dry  curls,  had  risen  from  a  real  un- 
plumbed,  salt,  estranging  sea,  instead  of  from  the  silly 
ripples  of  Florentine  convention. 

But  physically  he  was  battered  ;  and  his  condition  led 
my  father  to  prevail  upon  him,  with  much  difficulty,  to 
be  examined  by  a  doctor.  "  He  will  not  live,"  was  the 
first  verdict,  "and  you  hasten  his  death  by  denying  his 
whims  and  opium."  But  the  risk  was  taken,  and  Francis 
sent  to  a  private  hospital. 

Thus  he  alludes  to  the  change  within  himself  : — 
"  Please  accept  my  warmest  thanks  for  all  your  kindness 
and  trouble  on  my  behalf.  I  know  this  is  a  very  per- 
functory looking  letter  ;  but  until  the  first  sharp  struggle 
is  over,  it  is  difficult  for  me  to  write  in  any  other  way." 

De  Quincey  thought  that  opium  killed  Coleridge  as 
a  poet,  that  it  was  the  enemy  of  his  authorship  ;  that 
the  leaving  off  of  opium  creates  a  new  heaven  and  a 
new  earth.  Thompson  had  now  to  experience  such 
things  by  the  denial  of  the  drug.  Of  his  links  with 
Coleridge  A.  M.  writes  in  the  Dublin  Review,  January 
1908  : — 

"  Of  his  alienation  from  ordinary  life,  laudanum  was  the  sole 
cause,  and,  of  laudanum,  early  and  long  disease.  Coleridge's 
fault  was  Thompson's — an  evasion  of  the  daily  dues  of  man  to 
man.  It  was  laudanum  that  dissolved  Coleridge's  bond  to  wife 
and  child,  and  piled  their  unanswered  letters  by  his  bed  of  illu- 
sion and  shattering  dreams  ;  it  was  laudanum  that  held  the  hand 
bound  to  open  them,  turning  it  half  callous  and  half  timorous,  as 
though  insensibility  should  borrow  of  sensibility  its  flight,  its 
cowardice,  and  its  closed  eyes  ;  or  rather  the  sensitive  and  loving 
man  was  acting  his  own  part,  wearing  a  delusive  likeness  to  him- 
self, while  laudanum  cared  nothing  for  wife  or  child.  It  was 
laudanum  that  sent  Coleridge  to  take  refuge  on  one  alien  hearth 
when  no  fire  was  kindled  to  welcome  him  in  any  home  of  his 
kindred.     It  was  laudanum  that  was  the  unspoken  thing,  the  un- 

94 


He   Renounces   Opium 

named,  in  Coleridge's  conscious  talk ;  other  things  he  would 
confess,  but  not  this,  which  was  the  daily  desire,  the  daily  posses- 
sion, and  the  daily  stealth.  So  it  was  also,  in  his  own  degree, 
with  this  later  sufferer.  Francis  Thompson  was  not  like  Coleridge  ; 
he  had  not  Coleridge's  bond  and  obligations  ;  but  the  laudanum 
was  alike  in  the  wronged  veins,  the  altered  blood,  of  both." 

The  renunciation  of  opium,  not  its  indulgence,  opened 
the  doors  of  the  intellect.  Opium  killed  the  poet  in 
Coleridge  ;  the  opium  habit  was  stifled  at  the  birth  of 
the  poet  in  Thompson.  His  images  came  toppling 
about  his  thoughts  overflowingly  during  the  pains  of 
abstinence.  This,  too,  was  de  Quincey's  experience, 
told  when  he  was  unwinding  "  the  accursed  chain "  : 
"  I  protest  to  you  I  have  a  greater  influx  of  thoughts  in 
one  hour  at  present  than  in  a  whole  year  under  the 
reign  of  opium.  It  seems  as  though  all  the  thoughts 
which  had  been  frozen  up  for  a  decade  of  years  by 
opium  had  now,  according  to  the  old  fable,  been  thawed 
at  once." 

"The  Ode  to  the  Setting  Sun"  was  written  at  mid- 
summer in  1889,  and  on  receiving  it,  his  editor,  with 
my  mother  and  a  young  friend,  Mr.  Vernon  Blackburn, 
straightway  took  the  train  to  congratulate  him  on  this 
first  conclusive  sign  of  the  splendour  of  his  powers. 
For  the  poet  had  been  placed  with  the  monks  at 
Storrington  Priory,  and  it  was  the  music  of  three 
wandering  musicians  heard  in  the  village  street  that 
opened  the  ode  * : — 

The  wailful  sweetness  of  the  violin 
Floats  down  the  hushed  waters  of  the  wind, 

The  heart-strings  of  the  throbbing  harp  begin 
To  long  in  aching  music.   .  .  . 

Thus  by  accident  were  the  words  of  Sir  Thomas 
Browne,  an  author  beloved  of  Francis — words  quoted  by 

1  He  himself  notes  the  circumstances  of  composition.  "  Mem. — '  Ode  to 
Setting  Sun  '  begun  in  the  field  of  the  Cross,  and  under  shadow  of  the  Cross, 
at  sunset ;  finished  ascending  and  descending  Jacob's  Ladder  (mid  or  late 
noon  ?)  "     "  The  Song  of  the  Hours  "  also  was  written  at  Storrington. 

95 


The  Discovery 

de  Quincey — again  made  good  :  "And  even  that  tavern 
music,  which  makes  one  merry,  another  mad,  in  me 
strikes  a  deep  fit  of  devotion." 

After  requests  for  boots  and  writing-pads — walking 
and  writing  made  up  his  days — he  gives  notice  that 
with  many  misgivings  he  has  fixed  on  Shelley  for  the 
theme  of  a  first  Dublin  Review  article  : — 

"  I  have  done  so  principally  because  I  remember  more 
of  him  than  any  other  poet  (though  that  is  saying  little). 
Coleridge  was  always  my  favourite  poet ;  but  I  early 
recognised  that  to  make  him  a  model  was  like  trying  to 
run  up  a  window-pane,  or  to  make  clotted  cream  out  of 
moonlight,  or  to  pack  jelly-fish  in  hampers.  So  that  until 
I  was  twenty-two  Shelley  was  more  studied  by  me  than 
anyone  else.  At  the  same  time  I  am  exposed  to  the 
danger  of  talking  platitudes,  because  so  much  has  been 
written  about  Shelley  of  late  years  which  I  have  never 
read.  I  may  have  one  or  two  questions  to  ask  you  in 
relation  to  the  subject  as  I  go  on.  Thank  you  for  the 
American  paper.  Only  the  poet  feels  complimented. 
Your  criticisms  on  the  Merry  England  article  were 
(for  once  in  a  way)  entirely  anticipated  by  my  own 
impressions.  Happy  are  they  that  hear  their  detractions 
and  can  put  them  to  mending.  With  regard  to  what 
you  say  about  the  advantage  of  my  being  in  a  more 
booky  place  than  Storrington1  I  entirely  agree.  Nor 
need  you  fear  the  opium.  I  have  learned  the  advantage 
of  being  without  it  for  mental  exercise  ;  and  (still  more 
important)  I  have  learned  to  bear  my  fits  of  depression 
without  it.     Personally  I  no  longer  fear  it." 

In  a  later  letter: — "Shelley  was  sent  off  yesterday. 
Herewith  the  few  fugitive  verses  I  spoke  of.  With  re- 
gard to  the  article,  please  take  no  notice  of  any  writing 

1  The  Shelley  Essay  bears  signs  of  the  booklessness  of  Storrington.     All 
the  quotations  were  made  from  memory,  and  nearly  all  were  inaccurate. 

96 


At  Storrington 

on  the  backs  of  the  sheets,  and  disregard  all  pencilled 
writing,  either  front  or  back.  The  opening  is  carefully 
constructed  so  that,  if  you  think  advisable,  you  can  detach 
it,  and  leave  the  article  to  commence  on  page  10." 

His  next  runs  : — 

"Surprised  about  Shelley.  Seemed  to  me  dreadful 
trash  when  I  read  it  over  before  sending  it.  Shut  my 
eyes  and  ran  to  the  post,  or  some  demon  might  have  set 
me  to  work  on  picking  it  again.  Don't  see  but  what  we 
can  easily  draw  the  knife  out  of  your  heart  by  knocking 
out  the  praise  of  Swinburne.  Won't  grieve  you  if  we 
leave  in  the  disparaging  part  of  the  comparison,  I  hope  ? 
And  I  daresay  you  are  perfectly  right  about  it." 

Of  this  Shelley  article  nearly  the  whole  history  is 
told  in  a  long  letter  to  his  own  and  his  family's  friend, 
Dr.  Carroll : — 

"The  article  on  Shelley  which  you  asked  about  I 
finished  at  last,  with  quite  agonising  pain  and  elabora- 
tion. It  might  have  been  written  in  tears,  and  is  pro- 
portionately dear  to  me.  I  fear,  however,  that  it  will 
not  be  accepted,  or  accepted  only  with  such  modifica- 
tions as  will  go  to  my  heart.  It  has  not  been  inserted 
in  the  current  issue  of  the  Dublin — a  fact  which  looks 
ominous.  First,  you  see,  I  prefaced  it  by  a  fiery 
attack  on  Catholic  Philistinism  (exemplified  in  Canon 

T ,  though  I  was  not  aware  about  him  at  the  time  I 

wrote  the  article),  driven  home  with  all  the  rhetoric 
which  I  could  muster.  That  is  pretty  sure  to  be  a 
stumbling-block.  I  consulted  Mr.  Meynell  as  to  its  sup- 
pression, but  he  said  '  Leave  it  in.'  I  suspect  that  he 
thoroughly  agrees  with  it.  Secondly,  it  is  written  at 
an  almost  incessant  level  of  poetic  prose,  and  seethes 
with  imagery  like  my  poetry  itself.  Now  the  sober,  pon- 
derous, ecclesiastical  Dublin  confronted  with  poetic  prose 
must  be  considerably  scared.  The  editor  probably  cannot 

97  G 


The  Discovery 

make   up    his    mind   whether    it   is    heavenly   rhetoric 
or  infernal  nonsense.     And  in  the  midst  of  my  vexation 
at  feeling  what  a  thankless  waste  of  labour  it  is,  I  can- 
not help  a  sardonic  grin  at  his  conjectured  perplexity. 
Mr.  Meynell's  opinion  was  '"Shelley"  is  splendid.'  .  .  . 
"  There  can  now  be  no  doubt  that  the  Dublin  Review 
has  rejected  my  article.     Nothing  has  been  heard  of  it 
since  it  was  sent.    I  only  hope  that  they  have  not  lost  the 
MS.  That  would  be  to  lose  the  picked  fruit  of  three  painful 
months — a  quite  irreparable  loss.    I  am  not  surprised,  my- 
self.   What  is  an  unlucky  ecclesiastical  editor  to  do  when 
confronted  with   something  so  sui  generis  as  this — my 
friend's  favourite  passage,  and  the  only  one  which  I  can 
remember.    I  had  been  talking  of  the  'Cloud,'  and  remark- 
ing that  it  displayed  '  the  childish  faculty  of  make-believe, 
raised  to  the  nth  power.'     In  fact,  I  said,  Shelley  was 
the  child,  still  at  play,  though  his  play-things  were  larger. 
Then  I  burst  into  prose  poetry.    '  The  universe  is  his  box 
of  toys.    He  dabbles  his  hands  in  the  sunset.    He  is  gold- 
dusty  with  tumbling  amid  the  stars.     He  makes  bright 
mischief  with  the  moon.     He  teases  into  growling  the 
kennelled  thunder,  and  laughs  at  the  shaking  of  its  fiery 
chain.     He  dances  in  and  out  of  the  gates  of  heaven. 
He  runs  wild  over  the  fields  of  ether.      He  chases  the 
rolling  world.     He  gets  between  the  feet  of  the  horses 
of  the  sun.     He  stands  in  the  lap  of  patient  Nature, 
and  twines  her  loosened  tresses  after  a  hundred  wilful 
fashions,  to  see  how  she  will  look  nicest  in  his  poetry.' 
The  editor  sees  at  once  that  here  is  something  such  as 
he  has  never  encountered  before.     Personally,  I  recollect 
nothing  like  it  in  English  prose.     In  French  prose  I 
could  point  to  something  not  so  dissimilar — in   Victor 
Hugo.     But  not  in  English.     De  Quincey  is  as  boldly 
poetical,  and  his  strain  far  higher ;  but  he  is  poetical 
after    quite   another    style.      The    editor    feels   himself 
out  of  his  latitude.     He  is  probably  a  person  of  only 
average  literary  taste — that  is,  he  can  tell  the  literary 

98 


"  Shelley  "  is   Rejected 

hawk  from  the  literary  handsaw  when  the  wind  is 
southerly.  He  feels  that  discretion  is  the  better 
part  of  valour.  The  thing  may  be  very  good,  may 
be  very  bad.  But  it  is  beyond  or  below  compre- 
hension. So  he  rejects  it.  Twelve  years  hence  (if  he 
live  so  long)  he  will  feel  uncomfortable  should  anyone 
allude  to  that  rejection.  Unless  he  has  lost  the  MS.  In 
that  case  the  thing  is  gone  for  ever. 

u  I  had  a  commission  (through  Mr.  Meynell)  to  write 
an  article  for  the  jubilee  number  of  the  Tablet;  but  the 
editor  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  it  when  it  was 
written.  I  had  said  that  Cardinal  Wiseman  too  often 
wrote  like  a  brilliant  schoolboy  (I  might  have  said  that, 
as  regards  his  style,  he  seldom  wrote  like  anyone  else) ; 
and  I  had  been  guilty  of  other  sins  of  omission  and 
commission  which  were  likely  to  bristle  the  hair  of  the 
Canon  T s." 

And  later,  to  the  same  correspondent : — 
"  August. — I  have  been  re-reading  what  I  said  regarding 
my  rejected  Shelley  article,  and  I  see  that  you  might 
possibly  interpret  my  language  as  referring  to  its  merit. 
This  would  make  my  words  read  arrogantly  in  the  ex- 
treme. When  I  said  that  I  knew  nothing  just  like  it  in  the 
language,  I  was  speaking  of  its  kind,  its  style.  As  to  the 
merit  of  that  style,  I  have  ventured  no  opinion  of  my 
own,  but  simply  given  you  my  friends'  opinion.  I  am  so 
poor  a  judge  of  my  own  work,  that  they  never  pay  any 
attention  to  what  I  think  about  it.  Please  always 
bear  this  in  mind.  You  may  be  sure  that  in  speaking 
about  my  own  work  I  always  follow  the  same  rule,  to 
tell  you  merely  what  my  friends  say  as  to  its  merit." 

What  little  more  remains  to  be  told  of  the  writing  and 
the  posthumous  publication  of  the  Shelley  article  comes 
from  W.  M. : — 

"  It  happened  that  Bishop  (afterwards  Cardinal)  Vaughan,  who 
knew  the  poet's  family  well  in  Lancashire,  and  had  known  Francis 

99 


The  Discovery 

himself  at  Ushaw,  met  him  in  London  at  our  house,  and  out 
of  this  meeting  and  the  Bishop's  wish  to  serve  him,  came  the 
suggestion  that  he  should  contribute  a  paper  to  the  Dublin  Review. 
That  venerable  quarterly,  founded  by  Cardinal  Wiseman  half  a 
century  before,  Bishop  Vaughan  now  owned  but  did  not  edit.  It 
inherited  ecclesiastical  rather  than  literary  traditions  ;  and  a  due 
consideration  for  these  dictated  the  opening  passages  of  the  Essay, 
since  somewhat  curtailed.  Hence  proceeded  the  plea  that  Theo- 
logy and  Literature  might  be  reconciled— just  such  another  recon- 
ciliation as  Art  had  been  adjured  to  seal  with  Nature  at  the  end 
of  the  eighteenth  century  : 

Go  find  her,  kiss  her,  and  be  friends  again  ! 

And  Thompson's  plea  had  this  added  relevance — that  the  choice 
of  a  subject,  left  to  himself,  had  fallen  upon  Shelley ;  perhaps  a 
dubious  choice.  At  any  rate  the  article  was  returned  to  him 
from  the  Dublin — one  more  of  those  memorable  rejections  that 
go  into  the  treasury  of  all  neglected  writers'  consolations,  perhaps 
their  illusions.  Thrown  aside  by  its  discouraged  author,  the 
Essay  x  was  found  among  his  papers  after  his  death.  His  literary 
executor  thought  it  right  that  the  Review  for  which  it  was  originally 
designed  should  again  have  the  offer  of  it,  since  a  new  generation 
of  readers  had  arisen,  and  another  editor,  in  days  otherwise  re- 
generate. Thus  it  happened  that  this  orphan  among  Essays 
entered  at  last  on  a  full  inheritance  of  fame." 

It  appeared  in  the  Dublin  dated  July  1908,  and  for  the 
first  time  in  a  long  life  of  seventy-two  years  the  Review 
passed  into  a  second  edition.  Its  reissue  in  separate 
form  has  for  preface  Mr.  George  Wyndham's  estimate 
of  it  as  the  most  important  contribution  made  to  English 
literature  for  twenty  years. 

From  F.  T.  to  W.  M  :— 

"The  Dublin  article  having  been  sent,  I  write  to  ask 
you  for  more  work,  or  directions  as  to  work.  I  am 
afraid,  however,  that  even  if  there  is  room  for  it  the 
article  will  hardly  be  in  time,  and  that  through  my  own 

1  Also  a  Shelley  "  Selection,"  not  published. 
100 


He   Learns  to  Work 

fault.  I  miscalculated  the  date  from  Father  Driffield's 
letter,  and  seeing  no  newspapers,  did  not  discover  my 
error  till  I  came  to  post  it.  This  is  something  like  a 
confession  of  failure,  and  I  am  naturally  chagrined 
about  it.  But  I  have  one  comfort  from  the  affair  :  I 
not  only  hope  but  think  (though  until  I  see  how  I  pro- 
ceed with  my  next  book  I  will  not  speak  decidedly)  that  it 
has  broken  me  to  harness.  You  ask  me  to  write  frankly, 
and  so  I  will  tell  you  just  how  I  have  found  myself 
get  on  with  my  work.  At  first  I  could  not  get  on  at  all. 
I  tried  regularly  enough  to  settle  myself  to  writing  ;  but 
my  brain  would  not  work.  During  the  last  four  days  I 
wrote  at  a  pretty  uniform  rate,  and  wrote  so  continuously 
as  I  have  never  been  able  to  write  before — in  fact,  more 
continuously  than  I  mean  to  write  again,  except  in  an 
emergency  like  this — I  began  to  feel  very  shaken  at  the 
end  of  it.  But  the  valuable  thing  is  that  I  was  able  to 
make  myself  write  when  and  for  as  long  as  I  pleased.  I 
want  some  more  work  now,  but  if  left  to  myself  I  may 
lose  a  habit  scarcely  acquired.  .  .  .  The  only  two  ideas 
in  my  head  both  require  books.  The  one  is  for  an 
article  on  Dryden,  the  other  an  old  idea  for  an  article  on 
1  Idylls  of  the  King.'  Very  likely  my  idea  with  regard 
to  the  latter  has  long  been  anticipated :  so  that  to 
prevent  any  possible  waste  of  labour  let  me  briefly 
explain  it.  I  have  seen  it  objected  to  them  that  there 
are  only  the  slightest  and  most  arbitrary  narrative  links 
between  them,  and  that  they  form  no  real  sequence. 
My  idea  is  to  show  that  they  have  not  a  narrative,  but 
a  moral,  sequence.  (I  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
allegory.)  Tennyson's  idea  has  been  to  show  the  gradual 
disruption  of  Arthur's  court  and  realm  through  the 
'little  pitted  speck  in  garnered  fruit'  of  Guinevere's  sin, 
which  '  rotting  inward  slowly  moulders  all.'  This  he 
does  by  a  series  of  separate  pictures  each  exhibiting 
in  a  progressive  style  the  disintegrating  process.  Each 
exhibits  some  definite  development  of  decaying  virtue 

IOI 


The   Discovery 

in  court  or  kingdom.  Viewed  in  this  light,  they  have  a 
real  relation  to  each  other  which  is  that  of  their  common 
relation  to  the  central  idea.  It  is  a  crescendo  of  moral 
laxity  ;  and  throughout,  by  constant  little  side  touches, 
he  keeps  before  my  mind  how  all  this  is  sprung  from  the 
daily  visible  sin  of  the  Queen's  life.  That  is  the  idea  : 
judge  for  yourself  if  it  is  worth  anything.  If  you  have 
any  work  ready  for  me,  I  should  prefer  to  do  that ;  I 
think  I  could  now  do  work  not  originated  by  myself." 

He  continues : — 

"  I  gather  from  her  last  poem  that  Miss  Tynan  is  no 
longer  with  you,  or  I  should  have  hardly  sent  you  the 
longer  verses  (the  '  Sere  of  the  Leaf '),  for  I  feel  that  I 
have  taken  a  perhaps  unwarrantable  liberty  in  apostro- 
phising her,  even  in  her  poetical  and  therefore  public 
capacity.  I  can  only  plead  that  verse,  like  'l'Amour' 
in  Carmen's  song — 

est  enfant  de  Boheme, 
Qui  n'a  jamais,  jamais  connu  de  loi ! 

The  thing  would  not  write  itself  otherwise.  She 
happened  to  set  the  current  of  my  thought,  and  I  could 
not  quit  the  current." 

Of  this  liberty  Miss  Tynan,  one  of  the  earliest  of 
Francis's  admiring  and  admired,  wrote  to  her  poet: — 

"  I  must  thank  you  very  much  for  associating  my  name  with 
your  luxuriantly  beautiful  poem  in  the  current  number  (January 
1 891)  of  Merry  England,  and  for  giving  my  words  place  on  the 
golden  and  scarlet  web  and  woof  of  poetry.  No  one  could  fail  to 
be  proud  and  grateful  for  such  a  distinction.  I  have  been  deeply 
interested  in  your  poetry  since  the  first  day  I  saw  your  name  to 
1  Dream  Tryst.'  I  am  sure  I  was  one  of  the  first  to  write  and 
ask, '  Who  is  Francis  Thompson  ?  '  " 

And  again  in  1892  : — 

"...  You  are  too  good  to  say  you  are  indebted  to  me.  If  I 
thought  you  were,  I  should  begin  to  feel  proud  of  myself.     I'd 

102 


The  Confessional  of  Verse 

like  to  think  better  of  my  own  work  than  I  do  of  some  of  my 
friends'  work — Mr.  Yeats  is  one,  and  you  are  another — but  I 
can't.  My  faculty  of  admiration  is  too  true  and  strong.  ...  I 
hope  you  will  write  to  me  again,  and  I  look  forward  to  meeting  and 
knowing  you  when  I  come  to  London.  Your  buying  the '  Poppies  ' 
in  the  circumstances  was  indeed  a  tribute.  I  am  very  glad  to 
know  you  are  now  lifted  to  a  safer  position,  out  of  danger  of  such 
poverty.    I  am  very  glad  for  you  to  be  the  Meynells'  friend."  .  .  . 

F.  T.  to  W.  M  :— 

"  Dear  Mr.  Meynell, — How  good  and  kind  and  patient 
you  are  with  me  !  far  more  than  I  am  with  myself,  for  I 
am  often  sick  with  the  being  that  inhabits  this  villainous 
mud-hut  of  a  body.  ...  I  beguiled  the  four  ill  nights  I 
have  spoken  of,  while  the  mental  cloud  was  somewhat 
lifted,  by  writing  the  verses  [one  set  of  these  was  the 
'  Sere  of  the  Leaf ']  I  herewith  send  you.  If  there  be 
no  saving  grace  of  poetry  in  them  they  are  damned  ; 
for  I  am  painfully  conscious  that  they  display  me,  in 
every  respect,  at  my  morally  weakest.  Indeed  no  one 
but  yourself — or,  to  be  more  accurate,  yourselves — 
would  I  have  allowed  to  see  them  ;  for  often  verse  written 
as  I  write  it  is  nothing  less  than  a  confessional  far 
more  intimate  than  the  sacerdotal  one.  That  touches 
only  your  sins,  and  leaves  in  merciful  darkness  your 
ignominious,  if  sinless,  weaknesses.  When  the  soul 
goes  forth,  like  Andersen's  Emperor,  thinking  herself 
clothed  round  with  singing-robes,  while  in  reality  her 
naked  weakness  is  given  defenceless  to  the  visiting  wind, 
not  every  mother's  son  would  you  allow  to  gaze  on  you 
at  such  a  time.  And  the  shorter  of  the  two  pieces 
especially  is  such  a  self-revelation,  I  feel,  as  even  you 
have  hardly  had  from  me  before.  Something  in  them 
may  be  explained  to  you,  and  perhaps  a  little  excused, 
by  the  newspaper  cutting  I  forward.  For  some  inscrut- 
able reason  it  has  affected  me  as  if  I  never  expected  it. 
I  knew  of  it  beforehand  ;  I  thought  I  was  familiarised 

103 


The  Discovery 

with  the  idea  ;  yet  when  the  newspaper  came  as  I  sat  at 
dinner,  and  I  saw  her  name  among  so  many  familiar 
names,  I  pushed  away  the  remainder  of  my  dinner  and 
— well,  I  will  not  say  what  I  did.  I  have  been  miserable 
ever  since.  The  fact  is  my  nerves  want  taking  up  like 
an  Atlantic  cable,  and  recasing.  I  am  sometimes  like  a 
dispossessed  hermit-crab,  looking  about  everywhere  for  a 
new  shell,  and  quivering  at  every  touch.  Figuratively 
speaking,  if  I  prick  my  finger  I  seem  to  feel  it  with  my 
whole  body."  The  shell  he  had  cast,  with  lamentations, 
was  the  encrustation  of  disease,  of  opium,  of  street 
miseries. 

In  February  1890,  having  bidden  good-bye  at  Stor- 
rington  to  Daisy  "  and  Daisy's  sister-blossom  or 
blossom-sister,  Violet  (there  are  nine  children  in  the 
family,  the  last  four  all  flowers — Rose,  Daisy,  Lily,  and 
Violet),"  he  returned  to  London.  In  town  the  poetry 
was  continued.  "Love  in  Dian's  Lap"  was  written 
as  he  paced,  in  place  of  the  Downs,  the  library  floor  at 
Palace  Court ;  and  in  Kensington  Gardens,  where  I  have 
seen  him  at  prayer  as  well  as  at  poetry,  he  composed 
"  Sister  Songs."  Both  were  pencilled  into  penny  exercise- 
books.  His  reiterated  "  It's  a  penny  exercise-book " 
is  remembered  by  every  member  of  the  household  set 
to  search  for  the  mislaid  first  drafts  of  "  Love  in  Dian's 
Lap  " — he  himself  too  dismayed  to  look. 

In  this  form  "  Sister  Songs  "  (written  at  about  the  time 
of  "The  Hound  of  Heaven,"  in  1891,  but  not  published 
till  1895)  was  covertly  handed  as  a  Christmas  offering  to 
his  friends,  or  rather  left  with  a  note  where  it  would  be 
seen  by  them  : — 

11  Dear  Mr.  Meynell, — I  leave  with  this  on  the  mantel- 
piece (in  an  exercise-book)  the  poem  of  which  I  spoke. 
If  intensity  of  labour  could  make  it  good,  good  it  would 
be.  One  way  or  the  other,  it  will  be  an  effectual  test  of 
a  theme  on  which  I  have  never  yet  written  ;  if  from  it  I 

104 


A   Christmas   Present 

have  failed  to  draw  poetry,  then  I  may  as  well  take  down 
my  sign. — Always  yours,  Francis  Thompson." 

Later,  having  recovered  the  manuscript  to  add  to  it  the 
"  Inscription  "  he  returned  it  with  : — 

"Before  I  talk  of  anything  else,  let  me  thank  you 
ab  imis  medullis  for  the  one  happy  Christmas  I  have  had 
for  many  a  year.  Herewith  I  send  you  my  laggard  poem. 
I  have  been  delayed  partly  through  making  some  minor 
corrections,  but  chiefly  through  having  to  transcribe  the 
'  Inscription  '  at  the  close  of  it." 

He  had  watched  the  piling  up  of  family  presents  before 
making  his  own,  and  in  the  "  Inscription  "  he  tells  : — 

But  one  I  marked  who  lingered  still  behind, 
As  for  such  souls  no  seemly  gift  had  he  : 

He  was  not  of  their  strain, 
Nor  worthy  so  bright  beings  to  entertain, 
Nor  fit  compeer  for  such  high  company  ; 
Yet  was  he  surely  born  to  them  in  mind, 
Their  youngest  nursling  of  the  spirit's  kind. 

Last  stole  this  one. 
With  timid  glance,  of  watching  eyes  adread, 
And  dropped  his  frightened  flower  when  all  were  gone  ; 
And  where  the  frail  flower  fell,  it  withered. 
But  yet  methought  those  high  souls  smiled  thereon  ; 
As  when  a  child,  upstraining  at  your  knees 
Some  fond  and  fancied  nothings,  says,  "  I  give  you  these." 

Of  the  first  notion  for  this  poem's  title,  "  Amphicy- 
pellon,"  he  wrote  : — 

u  It  refers  to  the  afx(piKV7re\\ov  which  Hephaestus,  in 
Homer,  bears  round  to  the  gods  when  he  acts  as  cup- 
bearer by  way  of  joke.  When  Schliemann's  things  from 
Troy  were  first  exhibited  at  South  Kensington,  I  re- 
member seeing  among  them  a  drinking-cup  labelled 
*  Perhaps  the  amphicypellon  of  Homer.'  It  was  a  boat- 
shaped   cup  of  plain  gold,  open  at  the  top   and  with 

105 


The  Discovery 

«i  crescentic  aperture  at  either  extremity  of  the  rim, 
through  which  the  wine  could  either  be  poured  or  drunk. 
So  that  you  could  pour  from  either  end,  and  (if  the  cup 
were  brimmed  with  wine)  two  people  could  have  drunk 
from  it  at  the  same  time,  one  at  either  extremity.  In  a 
certain  sense,  therefore,  it  was  a  double  cup.  And  it  had 
also  two  handles,  one  at  either  of  its  boat-shaped  sides,  so 
that  it  was  a  two-handled  cup.  You  will  see  at  once 
why  I  have  applied  the  name  to  my  double  poem." 

Later  this  title  was  abandoned  : — 

"  Let  it  be  'Sister  Songs  '  as  you  suggest.  But  keep  '  an 
offering  to  two  sisters '  where  it  now  is — on  the  title 
page.  '  Sister  Songs  '  was  my  own  first  alteration  of  the 
title,  but  was  dropped  I  hardly  know  why." 

One  of  his  first  articles  after  he  left  his  always  beloved 
Storrington  was  the  notice  of  General  Booth's  In  Darkest 
England.  Called  "  Catholics  in  Darkest  England,"  and 
signed  "  Francis  Tancred,"  it  appeared  in  Merry  England 
for  January  1891.  Mr.  Stead,  in  the  Review  of  Reviezvs, 
wrote  : — 

"  Tancred  sounds  a  bugle-blast  which,  it  is  hoped,  will  ring 
through  the  Catholic  ranks  not  only  in  England,  but  in  all  Catholic 
Christendom.  After  speaking  highly  of  General  Booth  and  his 
large,  daring,  and  comprehensive  scheme,  he  points  out  that  it 
will  of  necessity  lead  to  the  proselytising  of  neglected  Catholics. 
He,  therefore,  cries  aloud  for  the  creation  of  a  Catholic  Salvation 
Army,  or  rather,  for  the  utilisation  of  the  Franciscans,  Regulars 
and  Tertiaries,  for  the  purpose  of  social  salvation." 

"  Mr.  Francis  Tancred  "  received  from  Mr.  Stead  the 
following  letter: — 

"January  12,  1891. 

"  Dear  Sir, — I  beg  to  forward  you  herewith  a  copy  of  the 
Review  of  Reviews,  in  which  you  will  find  your  admirable  article 
quoted  and  briefly  commented  upon.  Permit  me  to  say  that  I 
read  your  article  with  sincere  admiration  and  heartfelt  sympathy, 
and  that  it  delighted  the  Salvation  Army  people  at  headquarters 

106 


Cardinal   Manning 


more  than  anything  that  has  appeared  for  a  long  time.  '  That 
man  can  write,'  said  Bramwell  Booth  to  me,  and  I  think  he  sin- 
cerely grudges  your  pen  to  the  Catholic  Church. — I  am,  yours 
truly,  W.  T.  Stead."  1 

Cardinal  Manning2  thereupon  summoned  Francis 
through  my  father,  who  was  the  Cardinal's  friend,  and 
to  this  single  meeting  Francis  alludes  in  "To  the  Dead 
Cardinal  of  Westminster,"  a  poem  written,  when,  a 
year  later,  1892,  Manning  died.  Of  this,  A.  M.  has 
written  : — 

"  In  1892  his  editor  asked  him  for  a  poem  on  Cardinal  Manning, 
just  dead,  whom  the  poet  had  once  visited ;  surely  never  was 
a  poem  '  to  order '  so  greatly  and  originally  inspired.  I  have 
alluded  to  days  of  deep  depression  in  Francis  Thompson's  life, 
and  they  occurred  now  and  then,  with  fairly  cheerful  intervals, 
at  this  time.  It  was  in  the  grief  and  terror  of  such  a  day  that 
he  wrote  '  To  the  dead  Cardinal  of  Westminster,'  which  is  a  poem 
rather  on  himself  than  on  the  dead,  an  all  but  despairing  presage 
of  his  own  decease,  which,  when  sixteen  years  later  it  came,  brought 
no  despair." 

Claiming  the  ear  of  the  dead,  because  the  Cardinal 
asked  the  poet  to  go  often  to  him,  he  writes  in  a  first 
version  of  the  poem  : — 

I  saw  thee  only  once, 
Although  thy  gentle  tones 
Said  soft : — 
"  Come  hither  oft." 

1  There  perished  with  Mr.  Stead  in  the  Titanic  disaster  in  1912  a 
Catholic  priest,  who  had,  shortly  before  sailing,  recommended  "The  Hound 
of  Heaven  "  (with  the  strangely  significant  line  "  Adown  Titanic  glooms  of 
chasmed  fears  ")  to  a  friend,  as  an  antidote  to  decadent  poetry. 

2  At  this  time  he  met  another  Cardinal,  then  without  his  Hat,  who  knew 
his  people  in  Manchester.  There  were  many  pauses  when  the  talk  turned 
to  his  home.  Francis,  untamable  in  shabbiness,  even  to  the  point  of 
rags,  explained  afterwards:  "I  did  not  like  to  dwell  on  the  subject,  lest  he 
should  discover  that  I  was  in  poor  circumstances.  You  see  he  corresponds 
with  my  father."  But  his  father  did,  of  course,  already  know  of  his  need. 
A  letter,  dated  April  1892,  from  Bishop  Carroll,  runs  :— 

"  My  dear  Mr.  Meynell, — Francis  Thompson's  father  has  agreed  to 
give  me  a  small  sum  weekly  {$s.  6d.)  for  his  son.  I  have  consented  to 
forward  it,  and  will  do  so  monthly,  adding  a  little  myself.  I  now  enclose  a 
cheque  for  24s.     It  is  not  much,  but  it  will  help. — Ever  yours  sincerely, 

J.  Carroll." 

107 


The  Discovery 

Therefore  my  spirit  clings 
Heaven's  porter  by  the  wings, 
And  holds 
Its  gated  golds 

Apart,  with  thee  to  press 
A  private  business  ; 
Whence 
Deign  me  audience. 

Your  singer  did  not  come 
Back  to  that  stern,  bare  home  : 1 
He  knew 
Himself  and  you. 

I  saw,  as  seers  do, 
That  you  were  even  you  ; 
And — why, 
I  too  was  I. 

In  that,  as  in  "The  Fallen  Yew  "— 

"  I  take  you  to  my  inmost  heart,  my  true  !  " 
Ah  fool  !  but  there  is  one  heart  you 
Shall  never  take  him  to  ! — 

his    theme    is    one    that    often    pressed    home     upon 
him  : — 

"There  is  such  goodwill  to  impart,  and  such  good- 
will to  receive,  that  each  threatens  to  become  the  other, 
but  the  law  of  individuality  collects  its  secret  strength  ; 
you  are  you  and  I  am  I,  and  so  we  remain." 

These  concluding  words  are  transcribed  with  a  sup- 
pressed verse  of  "  To  the  Dead  Cardinal  of  Westminster  " 
— a  verse  suppressed,  I  imagine,  because  its  poetry  was 
not  approved  rather  than  because  it  committed  its  author 
to  a  too  definite  theory  of  Individualism.  While  he 
marks  the  impenetrability  of  mind  and  mind,  he  writes 

1  The  old  Archbishop's  House  in  Carlisle  Place. 

108 


Multitude  and   Solitude 

hotly   nevertheless    of    the    Political    Economist's    In- 
dividualism : — 

"For  diabolical  this  doctrine  of  Individualism  is;  it 
is  the  outcome  of  the  proud  teaching  which  declares  it 
despicable  for  men  to  bow  before  their  fellow-men. 
It  has  meant,  not  that  a  man  should  be  individual,  but 
that  he  should  be  independent.  Now  this  I  take  to  be 
an  altogether  deadly  lie.  A  man  should  be  individual, 
but  not  independent.  The  very  laws  of  Nature  forbid 
independence.  .  .  .  Independent,  he  puts  forth  no 
influence;  he  is  sterile  as  the  sands  of  the  desert. 
For  it  is  little  less  than  an  immutable  ordinance 
throughout  the  universe  that  without  intercommunion 
nothing  is  generated.  The  plant  may  reproduce  on 
itself,  but  if  you  would  rise  above  mere  vegetation,  or 
the  lowest  forms  of  animal  life,  there  can  be  no  true 
hermaphroditism ;  aye,  even  in  the  realm  of  Mind, 
'  male  and  female  created  He  them.'  There  is  but  one 
thing  you  can  do  for  yourself ;  you  can  kill  yourself. 
Though  you  may  try  to  live  for  yourself,  you  cannot, 
in  any  permanence,  live  by  yourself.  You  may  rot  by 
yourself,  if  you  will ;   but  that  is  not  doing,  it  is  ceasing." 

Afterwards  he  was  to  learn  even  more  strictly  from 
Patmore  that  the  unit  of  the  world  has  two  persons. 

As  in  the  realm  of  Mind,  so  in  the  Spiritual.  What 
might  seem  the  culmination  of  secret  Individualism,  the 
Communion  between  Christ  and  the  Soul,  is  made 
universal  in  the  Open  Court  of  Catholicism.  However 
strict  the  segregation  of  Francis's  spiritual  experiences, 
they  were,  save  in  some  rare  and  awful  moments  of 
estrangement,  offered  to  Christ,  through  Christ  to  the 
Church,  through  the  Church  to  the  men  from  whose 
intercourse  he  found  himself  debarred.  Tolstoy's  "  every 
man  in  the  depths  of  his  soul  has  something  he  alone 
comprehends,  namely,  his  attitude  towards  God"  is  a 
thought  divinely  expressed  in  the  "  Fallen  Yew,"  but  it  is 

109 


The  Discovery 

only  one  aspect  of  the  truth,  as  the  single  reflection  in  a 
looking-glass  is  but  a  single  aspect  of  the  thing  before 
it.  Second  thoughts,  like  second  mirrors,  encircle  and 
multiply  the  first  impression.1 

1  At  this  time  he  wrote  to  VV.  M.  of  an  article  in  Merry  England: — 
"  The  Franciscan  article  is  decidedly  good.  But  I  am  getting  a  little 
sick  of  this  talk  of  '  individualism,'  which  only  darkens  counsel.  The  writer 
seems  to  mean  by  it  not  at  all  what  it  means  to  me — and,  I  think,  to  the 
Cardinal.  What  he  calls  regulated  individualism  many  people  would  call 
Socialism.  In  fact,  some  Socialists  claim  the  Franciscans  as  a  Catholic  and 
religious  experiment  in  the  direction  of  Socialism.  It  seems  to  me  that  you 
can  juggle  with  words  like  '  individualism '  to  suit  your  own  whims." 


IIO 


CHAPTER   VI:    LITERARY   BEGINNINGS 

The  discovery  that  a  man  cannot,  with  any  per- 
manence, live  by  himself  was  made  after  his  experience 
in  London  and  at  Storrington.  He  had  returned  to  my 
father's  neighbourhood  resolved,  not  only  to  be  a  poet, 
but  to  meet  the  social  labours  of  journalism.  This,  the 
elbowing  with  other  workers  at  a  close-packed  table  in 
the  private  room  where,  every  Thursday,  my  father  pro- 
duced with  superhuman  effort  a  fresh  number  of  his 
Weekly  Register,  meant,  much  more  than  a  visit  to  a 
Cardinal,  a  return  to  the  humanities.  He  fell,  with 
much  talk,  right  into  the  thick  of  it.  He  was  put  to 
small  tasks  as  much  that  he  might  be  put  out  of  train 
for  talk  as  for  the  use  he  was.  But  no  device  was 
good  enough  to  do  that ;  set  him  to  write  and  there 
would  be  endless  conversation  on  nibs  and  paper,  of 
what  was  advisable  to  write,  what  to  ignore,  of  his 
readers'  alleged  susceptibilities,  and  his  care  for  the 
paper's  circulation.  In  the  end  after  a  hard  day  there 
might,  or  might  not,  be  a  "  par "  to  show,  or  some 
doggerel  not  to  show.  To  this  last  order  belongs  a 
later  attempt  to  describe  the  frenzied  atmosphere  of 
work  : — 

In  short,  with  a  papal 
Election  for  staple, 

Were  our  inkpot  a  tun 
And  our  pen  like  a  Maypole, 

We'd  never  be  done 
With  leader,  leaderette,  pad,  comment,  and  citing, 

Nor  I  with  this  blighting 
Frenzy  for  jingles  and  jangles  m-iting, 

III 


Literary    Beginnings 

And  writing 

And  inditing 

And  exciting 

And  biting 
My  pencil,  inviting 
Inspiration  and  plighting 
My  hair  into  elf-locks  most  wild,  and  affrighting, 
And  Registering,  and  daying  and  nighting  ; 

Our  readers 

Delighting 

With  leaders 

That  Whiteing 
Might  envy  before  he  found  work  more  requiting. 

The  instant  demands  of  the  "  busy  day "  he  never 
learnt  to  supply,  nor  was  he  put  at  all  seriously  to  the 
task  of  learning.  He  was  too  tedious  a  pupil  for  hurried 
masters.  On  one  busy  day,  when  his  platitudes  had 
been  so  long  chanted  that  they  had  got  written  into  the 
manuscripts  of  his  distracted  audience,  he  was  put  in 
charge  of  a  visitor  who  could  match  all  commonplaces 
with  tumultuously  brilliant  talk.  But  it  was  Thompson's 
day.  With  numbers  on  his  side — his  repetitions  came  in 
hordes  fit  to  annihilate  opposition — he  plodded  through 
a  long  afternoon  in  another  room  with  the  silent  saviour 
of  the  workers.  To  the  dinner  table  he  came  with 
the  bright  eye  of  enthusiasm  ;  "  I  have  never  known 
G more  brilliant,"  he  explained  in  all  honesty. 

At  times  he  would  be  sent  for  short  visits  to  Crawley, 
whence  he  writes  : — 

"  I  began  a  letter  to  you  last  Wednesday,  but  it  never 
got  finished  in  consequence  of  the  devotion  with  which 
I  have  since  been  working  at  a  short  article.  Now  that 
I  feel  on  my  feet  again,  I  am  longing  to  be  back  amongst 
you  all.  Touchstone,  with  the  slightest  alteration, 
voices  my  feelings  about  country  life  :  '  Truly,  shepherd, 
in  respect  of  itself,  it  is  a  good  life  ;  but  in  respect  that 

112 


On  the   "  Register  " 

it  is  a  shepherd's  life,  it  is  naught.  In  respect  that  it 
is  solitary,  I  like  it  very  well  ;  but  in  respect  that  it  is 
private,  it  is  a  very  vile  life.  Now  in  respect  it  is  in  the 
fields,  it  pleaseth  me  well  ;  but  in  respect  it  is  not  in  the 
city,  it  is  tedious.'  I  hope,  nevertheless,  that  I  shall  not 
see  you  long  after  I  return.  For  I  hope  that  before  the 
season  gets  too  late  you  will  yourself  make  your  escape 
from  that  infectious  web  of  sewer  rats  called  London. 
I  know  how  ill  you  were  before  I  left  ;  and  it  is  disgust- 
ing to  think  that  here  am  I,  like  the  fat  reed  that  rots 
itself  in  ease  on  Lethe  wharf,  while  you  are  hung  up 
body  and  soul  for  the  benefit  of  the  villainous  blubber- 
brained  public.  .  .  .  The  Register  gave  me  a  'turn,'  by 
the  way,  last  week.  My  eyes  strayed  carelessly  across 
the  announcements  of  deaths,  and  suddenly  saw — 
'  Monica  Mary.'  My  heart  stood  still,  I  think.  Of  course 
the  next  second  I  knew  it  must  be  some  other  Monica 
Mary,  not  she  who  walks  among  the  poppies — and  the 
restaurants.  How,  unwell  as  you  must  be,  you  have 
managed  to  make  such  good  work  of  the  Register  and 
of  Merry  England  I  don't  understand.  M.  E.,  in  parti- 
cular, is  an  excellent  number.  There  is  not  a  poor  article 
in  it — except  my  own,  which  is  dull  enough  to  please  a 
bishop.  B.'s  article  I  think  the  best  of  his  that  I  have 
seen.  It  is  really  very  good,  allowing  for  the  fact  that 
it  is  essentially  imitative  writing.  B.,  in  fact,  has 
made  to  himself  a  pair  of  breeches  from  Mrs.  Meynell's 
cast-off  petticoats.  But  it  is  cleverly  done,  and  I  did 
not  think  B.  had  been  tailor  enough  to  do  it.  There 
are  really  felicitous  things  in  the  article,  though  the  art 
of  them  has  been  caught  from  her.  For  instance,  the 
bit  about  the  crops  '  bearing  their  sheaves  of  spires,'  the 
transformation  of  the  sheep-bells,  the  weeds  putting  on 
'  the  solistic  immortality  of  sculpture,'  &c.  At  bottom, 
doubtless,  he  has  not  much  to  say.  But  he  has  said  it 
so  well — that  it  is  a  pity  someone  else  could  have  said 
it  so  much  better." 

113  H 


Literary   Beginnings 

Or,  like  as  not,  instead  of  to  the  country,  he  would  be 
sent  forth  on  some  expedition  with  the  children  to  whom 
he  bore  himself  as  a  sweet  and  eager,  though  not  from 
their  point  of  view  an  exciting,  companion.  He  would 
concentrate  on  companionable  things,  and  we  have  him 
writing  like  the  gravest  sportsman  and  intentest  child  of 
skating  in  Kensington  Gardens  in  the  winter  of  1891  : — 

"  Dear  Mr.  Meynell, — The  discovery  of  what  I  have 
done  to  my  own  skates  leads  me  to  ask  you  to  warn 
Monica  next  time  she  goes  skating.  If  she  wishes  to 
preserve  her  skates,  do  not  let  her  climb  in  them  the 
bank  of  the  Round  Pond,  where  it  is  set  with  stones. 
Indeed,  she  ought  not  to  go  on  the  bank  in  her  skates  at 
all ;  it  is  most  destructive  to  them.  For  which  reason, 
doubtless,  I  invariably  do  it  myself.  But  you  must  make 
her  understand  I  am  like  certain  saints — that  man  of 
exalted  piety,  St.  Simeon  Stylites,  for  instance — to  be 
admired  for  my  sublime  virtues,  but  not  recommended 
for  imitation.  I  forget  how  many  feet  of  sublime  virtue 
St.  Simeon  had ;  mine  defies  arithmetic.  Monica  can 
already  skate  backwards  a  little — I  can't.  She  can  do  the 
outside  edge  a  little — I  can't.  It  is  true  that  her  mode 
of  terminating  the  latter  stroke  is  to  sit  down  rapidly  on 
the  ice  ;  but  this  is  a  mere  individualism  of  technique.  It 
is  a  mannerism  which,  as  she  advances  in  her  art,  she 
will  doubtless  prune  in  favour  of  a  severer  style  ;  but 
all  youthful  artists  have  their  little  luxuriances.  Let  me 
thank  you  for  your  kindness  in  trusting  the  children 
to  me.  Or  shall  I  say  trusting  me  to  them  ?  For  on 
reflection,  I  have  a  haunting  suspicion  that  Monica 
managed  the  party  with  the  same  energy  she  devotes 
to  her  skating.  Do  not  infer  hence  that  she  tyran- 
nised over  me.  On  the  contrary,  both  she  and  Cuckoo 
were  most  solicitously  anxious  lest  I  should  mar  my 
own  pleasure  in  attending  to  theirs.  A  needless  anxiety, 
since  I  desired  nothing  better  than  to  play  with  them." 

114 


In  Kensington  Gardens 

Thus  the  fellowships  he  was  learning  at  the  work  table 
were  supplemented  by  younger  friendships.  There  was 
no  angel  to  pluck  them  from  him  by  the  hair ;  no 
printer's  boy  to  pluck  his  sleeve  when  he  would  attend 
elsewhere,  save  when  he  carried  his  work  to  Kensington 
Gardens  and  admonitory  nurse-maids  doubted  him  : — 

"The  notice  of  Mr.  Yeats  is  my  absolute  opinion  : 
indeed  I  have  reined  in  a  little  of  the  warmth  of  language 
to  which  I  was  disposed,  lest  my  pleasure  and  surprise 
should  betray  me  into  extreme  praise.  If  the  reviews 
are  not  very  brilliant,  you  must  excuse  me  if  you  can, 
for  I  myself  am  not  very  brilliant  just  now.  Fact  is,  the 
dearest  child  has  made  friends  with  me  in  the  park ;  and 
we  have  fallen  in  love  with  each  other  with  an  instan- 
taneous rapidity  not  unusual  on  my  side,  but  a  good  deal 
more  unusual  on  the  child's.  I  rather  fancy  she  thinks 
me  one  of  the  most  admirable  of  mortals  ;  and  I  firmly 
believe  her  to  be  one  of  the  most  daintily  supernatural  of 
fairies.  And  now  I  am  in  a  fever  lest  (after  the  usual 
manner  of  fairies)  her  kinsfolk  should  steal  her  from  me. 
Result — I  haven't  slept  for  two  nights,  and  I  fear  I  shall 
not  recover  myself  until  I  am  resolved  whether  my 
glimpses  of  her  are  to  be  interdicted  or  not.  Of  course 
in  some  way  she  is  sure  to  vanish — elves  always  do,  and 
my  elves  in  particular." 

For  the  New  Year,  1890,  he  offered  his  compliments 
in  the  letter  and  little  fairy-tale  that  follow.  They  will 
be  understood  by  everyone  who  knew  how  my  father 
tended  the  needs  of  others  : — 

"  Dear  Mr.  Meynell, — I  have  imagined  at  times 
that  in  certain  moments  you  may  be  inclined  to  have 
certain  thoughts,  just  as  I  myself  have  fits  in  which  I 
see  the  black  side  of  everything.  Will  you  pardon  if  I 
have  not  surmised  them  truly,  and  pardon  me  also  for 
what  is  perhaps,  I  fear,  the  impertinence  of  sending  you 

"5 


Literary   Beginnings 

the  enclosed  little  bit  ?  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  just 
an  attempt  to  put  into  a  sentence  or  two  what  I  was 
thinking  this  New  Year's  Eve  ;  when  I  pondered  on  the 
great  work  I  discern  you  to  have  done,  and  still  to  be 
doing.  I  hope  that  many  a  New  Year  to  come  will  see 
you  spreading  it ;  and  wish  I  could  be  your  right  hand 
in  it ;  not  the  clog  I  am.  On  account  of  your  services 
to  the  Angelic  Art  in  particular,  I  am  sure  the  angels 
must  be  rehearsing  a  special  chorus  for  you  in  Paradise. 
I  thought  so  when  I  read  Miss  Probyn's  poem.  May 
they  sprinkle  every  stone  in  your  house. — Ever  most 
truly  your  Francis  Thompson." 

The  "  enclosed  little  bit "  was  : — 

"  Within  the  mid  girth  of  banyan  was  the  banyan- 
spirit,  all  an-ache  with  heavy  heaving  through  the 
years  ;  and  he  was  saddened,  because  he  doubted  to 
what  end  his  weary  pain  of  them  had  been.  For  be- 
yond his  trunk  the  banyan  spirit  looked  not.  While 
without,  the  great  grove  hailed  him  sire ;  and  from 
every  bird  nestling  among  its  thousand  branches, 
Heaven's  ear  heard  his  voice." 

In  1891,  at  the  birth  of  my  brother  Francis,  he  wrote 
to  W.  M.  :— 

"  I  hardly,  I  fear,  gave  you  even  commonplace 
thanks  for  the  favour  you  conferred  on  me  in  choosing 
me  for  your  little  son's  godfather.  Even  now  I  am 
utterly  unable  to  express  to  you  what  I  feel  regarding  it  ; 
I  can  only  hope  that  you  may  comprehend  without 
words.  As  for  the  quietness  with  which  I  took  it  on 
Saturday — for  the  premeditated  of  emotion  in  speech  I 
have  an  instinctive  horror  which,  I  think,  you  share 
sufficiently  to  understand  and  excuse  in  me.  Besides, 
the  words  which  one  might  use  have  been  desiccated, 
fossilised,  by  those  amiable  persons  who  not  only  use 

116 


A  Wandering  Contributor 

the  heart  as  a  sleeve-ornament,  but  conspicuously  label 
it — <  This  is  a  Heart.'  One  can  only,  like  Cordelia,  speak 
by  silence. 

"Give  my  love  to  Monicella,  and  Cuckoo,  and  all  the 
children.  As  for  F.  M.  M.,  I  doubt  the  primitive  egoism 
is  still  too  new  in  him  for  him  to  care  a  baby-rattle 
about  my  love." 

That  he  carried  in  his  "copy"  a  day  late  mattered 
little  ;  that  he  then  further  delayed  it  by  some  accident 
seemed  serious  only  to  himself,  and  he  would  write  thus 
to  W.  M.  :— 

"  I  called  at  Palace  Court  on  Friday,  and,  finding 
you  were  gone,  started  to  follow  you.  Unfortunately  I 
fell  into  composition  on  the  way,  and  when  I  next 
became  conscious  of  matters  sublunary,  found  myself 
wandering  about  somewhere  in  the  region  of  Smithfield 
Market,  and  the  time  late  in  the  afternoon.  I  am 
heartily  sorry  for  my  failure  to  keep  my  appointment, 
and  hope  you  will  forgive  me.  I  thought  I  had  dis- 
ciplined myself  out  of  these  aberrations,  which  makes 
me  feel  all  the  more  vexed  about  the  matter. — Always 
your  F.  T. 

Or,  still  more  distressed  : — 

"  I  don't  know  what  I  shall  do,  or  what  you  shall  do. 
I  haven't  been  able  to  write  a  line,  through  sheer 
nervousness  and  fright.  Confound  Canon  Carroll !  It 
is  he  who  has  put  me  into  this  state.  I  wish  you  had 
never  incumbered  yourself  with  me.  I  am  more  in  a 
condition  to  sit  down  and  go  into  hysterics  like  a  girl 
than  to  write  anything.  I  know  how  vexed  and  im- 
patient you  must  feel  to  hear  this  from  me,  when  you 
had  expected  to  have  the  thing  from  me  this  morning. 
Indeed  I  feel  that  you  have  already  done  too  much  for 
me  ;  and  that  it  would  be  better  you  should  have  nothing 
more  to  do  with  me.     You  have   already  displayed  a 

117 


Literary   Beginnings 

patience  and  tenderness  with  me  that  my  kindred  would 
never  have  displayed  ;  and  it  is  most  unjust  that  I  should 
any  longer  be  a  burden  to  you.  I  think  I  am  fit  for 
nothing :  certainly  not  fit  to  be  any  longer  the  object  of 
your  too  great  kindness.  Please  understand  that  I 
entirely  feel,  and  am  perfectly  resigned  to  the  ending  of 
an  experiment  which  even  your  sweetness  would  never 
have  burdened  yourself  with,  if  you  could  have  foreseen 
the  consequences.  F.  T." 

With  such  fits  my  father  made  it  his  business  to  deal, 
and  this  he  did  with  a  persuasiveness  and  love  that  I 
think  no  other  man  could  have  summoned.  But  for  his 
peculiar  power  F.  T.  would  have  returned  to  the  streets.1 

At  Friston,  in  Suffolk, 

Summer  set  lip  to  earth's  bosom  bare, 
And  left  the  flushed  print  in  a  poppy  there. 

At  Friston  he  was  given  the  poppy  and  wrote  the 
poem.  I  remember  him  as  measuring  himself,  on  the 
borders  of  a  marsh,  against  a  thistle,  the  fellow  to  that 
which  stands  six  foot  out  of  Sussex  turf  in  "  Daisy  "  ;  I 
see  him  with  the  poplars  on  the  marshes,  and  associate 
him  with  a  picnic  on  the  Broads  among  pine-cones  and 
herons.  I  think  it  is  he  I  see  coming  in  at  the  farm- 
gate  dusty  from  a  road  still  bright  in  the  dusk.  But 
the  recollections  are  elusive.  His  place  in  childish 
memories  is  not  defined,  like  that  of  Brin,  the  friend 
who  hit  a  ball  over  the  farm  roof,  of  the  chicken  pecking 
at  the  dining-room  floor,  a  sister's  first  steps,  the  boy 
who  twisted  the  cows'  tails  as  he  drove  the  cattle  up 
from  the  pastures  at  night ;  and  better  remembered  is 
the  hard  old  man  who,  stooping  over  his  work  in  the 
vegetable  garden,  suddenly  rose  up  and  threw  a  stone 
as  big  as  a  potato  at  a  truant  boy.     The  boy  and  man, 

1  In  after  years  Francis  wrote  letters  that  seemed  to  supply  no  possible 
opening  for  the  comforter.  Read  to-day,  their  desperation  offers  no  outlet 
but  a  return  to  the  streets.  But  no  sooner  did  F.  T.  come  into  my  father's 
presence,  than  he  was  consoled,  often  without  the  exchange  of  a  word. 

118 


In  the  Land  of  Flag-lilies 

the  cry  of  the  one  and  the  grunted  curses  of  the  other, 
and  their  remorseless  manner  of  settling  again  to  work, 
were  things  for  a  London  child  to  marvel  at.  But  the  poet, 
himself  as  gentle  as  children,  is  remembered,  and  remem- 
bered vaguely,  as  part  of  the  general  gentle  world.  Others 
are  remembered  for  competence,  for  large  authority, 
the  freedom  of  their  coming  and  going,  their  businesses, 
affluence,  dreariness,  or  laughter  ;  they  are  the  substantial 
people,  more  substantial  than  the  people  of  to-day. 

There  was  a  certain  mightiness  about  them,  like  that 
of  a  mighty  actor  ;  but  Francis  Thompson  is  not  in  the 
cast.  Moreover,  he  is  not  among  the  insufferable 
"supers  "  who  held  one's  hand  too  long  or  whose  aspect 
was  abhorrent  to  the  fastidious  eye  of  youth.  In  my 
earlier  memories  he  is  as  unsubstantial  as  the  angel  I 
knew  to  be  at  my  shoulder.  Looking  back  I  cannot  see 
either  clearly,  but  am  not  incredulous  on  that  account. 

But  however  insignificant  he  may  have  been  in  the 
injudicious  view  of  a  boy,  he  was  of  consequence  to  the 
farm  housewife,  who  could  never  bring  herself  to  call 
him  anything  but  "  Sir  Francis." 

There  is  more  of  Friston  and  the  Monica  of  "The 
Poppy  "  in  later  verses  : — 

In  the  land  of  flag-lilies, 
Where  burst  in  golden  clangours 
The  joy-bells  of  the  broom, 
You  were  full  of  willy-nillies, 
Pets,  and  bee-like  angers  : 
Flaming  like  a  dusky  poppy, 
In  a  wrathful  bloom. 

•  ••••• 

Yellow  were  the  wheat-ways, 
The  poppies  were  most  red  ; 
And  all  your  meet  and  feat  ways, 
Your  sudden  bee-like  snarlings, 
Ah,  do  you  remember, 
Darling  of  the  darlings  ? 

119 


Literary   Beginnings 

Now  at  one,  and  now  at  two, 
Swift  to  pout  and  swift  to  woo, 
The  maid  I  knew  : 
Still  I  see  the  dusked  tresses — 
But  the  old  angers,  old  caresses  ? 
Still  your  eyes  are  autumn  thunders, 
But  where  are  you,  child,  you  ? 

My  father,  before  the  idea  of  a  published  volume  had 
taken  shape,  sewed  up  into  booklets  a  few  copies  of  the 
poems  already  printed  in  Merry  England.  One  copy 
was  sent  by  a  common  friend  to  Tennyson,  who  gave 
thanks,  through  his  son,  thus  briefly  : — 

"  Dear  Mr.  Snead-Cox, — Thanks  for  letting  us  see  the  vigorous 
poems. — Yours  truly,  Hallam  Tennyson." 

Browning,  on  the  other  hand,  who  was  a  visitor  at 
Palace  Court  and  on  whose  ready  sympathy  for  personal 
details  my  father  would  rely,  wrote  at  generous  length  : — 

"Asolo,  Veneto,  Italia,  Od.  7,  '89. 

"  Dear  Mr.  Meynell, — I  hardly  know  how  to  apologise  to 
you,  or  explain  to  myself  how  there  has  occurred  such  a  delay 
in  doing  what  I  had  an  impulse  to  do  as  soon  as  I  read  the  very 
interesting  papers  written  by  Mr.  Thompson,  and  so  kindly  brought 
under  my  notice  by  yourself.  Both  the  Verse  and  Prose  are 
indeed  remarkable — even  without  the  particulars  concerning  their 
author,  for  which  I  am  indebted  to  your  goodness.  It  is  altogether 
extraordinary  that  a  young  man  so  naturally  gifted  should  need 
incitement  to  do  justice  to  his  own  conspicuous  ability  by  en- 
deavouring to  emerge  from  so  uncongenial  a  course  of  life  as 
that  which  you  describe.  Surely  the  least  remunerating  sort 
of  '  literary  life '  would  offer  advantages  incompatible  with  the 
hardest  of  all  struggles  for  existence,  such  as  I  take  Mr.  Thompson's 
to  be.  Pray  assure  him,  if  he  cares  to  know  it,  that  I  have  a 
confident  expectation  of  his  success,  if  he  will  but  extricate  him- 
self— as  by  a  strenuous  effort  he  may — from  all  that  must  now 
embarrass  him  terribly.  He  can  have  no  better  friend  and  ad- 
viser than  yourself — except  himself,  if  he  listens  to  the  inner  voice. 

"  Pray  offer  my  best  thanks  to  Mrs.  Meynell  for  her  remem- 

120 


Browning's  Letter 


brance  of  me — who  am,  as  she  desires,  profiting  by  the  quiet  and 
beauty  of  this  place — whence,  however,  I  shall  soon  depart  for 
Venice,  on  my  way  homeward.1  I  gather,  from  the  absence  of 
anything  to  the  contrary  in  your  letter,  that  all  is  well  with  you — 
and  so  may  it  continue  !  I  do  not  forget  your  old  kindliness, 
though  we  are  so  much  apart  in  London  ;  and  you  must  account 
me  always,  dear  Mr.  Meynell,  as  yours  cordially, 

Robert  Browning." 

F.  T.  to  W.  M.  :— 

"I  have  received  Mr.  Sharp's  new  Life  of  Browning, 
which  reminds  me  to  do  what  I  have  been  intending  to 
do  for  a  long  time  past ;  but  whenever  I  wrote  to  you, 
my  mind  was  always  occupied  with  something  else 
which  put  the  subject  out  of  my  head.  I  had  better  do 
it  now,  for  even  my  unready  pen  will  say  better  what  I 
wish  to  say  than  would  my  still  more  unready  tongue. 
It  is  simply  that  I  wanted  to  tell  you  how  deeply  I  was 
moved  by  the  reading  of  Browning's  letter  in  Merry 
England.  When  you  first  mentioned  it  to  me  you 
quoted  loosely  a  single  sentence ;  and  I  answered,  I 
think,  something  to  the  effect  that  I  was  very  pleased  by 
what  he  had  said.  So  I  was  ;  pleased  by  what  I  thought 
his  kindliness,  for  (misled  by  the  form  in  which  you  had 
quoted  the  sentence  from  memory)  I  did  not  take  it 
more  seriously  than  that.  When  I  saw  Merry  England 
I  perceived  that  the  original  sentence  was  insusceptible 
of  the  interpretation  which  I  had  placed  upon  your 
quotation  of  it.  And  the  idea  that  in  the  closing  days  of 
his  life  my  writings  should  have  been  under  his  eye,  and 
he  should  have  sent  me  praise  and  encouragement,  is 
one  that  I  shall  treasure  to  the  closing  days  of  my  life. 
To  say  that  I  owe  this  to  you  is  to  say  little.  I  have 
already  told  you  that  long  before  I  had  seen  you,  you 
exercised,  unknown  to  myself,  the  most  decisive  influ- 
ence over  my  mental  development  when  without  such 

1  Browning  left  Asolo  at  the  end  of  October,  and  died  in  Venice  early  in 
December. 

121 


Literary   Beginnings 

an  influence  my  mental  development  was  like  to  have 
utterly  failed.  And  so  to  you  I  owe  not  merely 
Browning's  notice,  but  also  that  ever  I  should  have  been 
worth  his  notice.  The  little  flowers  you  sent  him  were 
sprung  from  your  own  seed.  I  only  hope  that  the  time 
may  not  be  far  distant  when  better  and  less  scanty 
flowers  may  repay  the  pains,  and  patience,  and  tender- 
ness of  your  gardening." 

The  poems  as  they  appeared  in  Merry  England  or  in 
journals  quoting  Merry  England 'found  notable  adherents. 
"The     Making    of    Viola"    was    re-printed     by    Miss 
Katharine  Tynan  in  1892  in  a  Dublin  paper,  to  which 
she  contributed  a  London    letter,   and  it  was   in   that 
form  that  Mr.  Garvin,  to  be  later  the  poet's  inspiring 
critic   and   friend,    first    chanced   upon  Thompson.     A 
leader-writer  on  the  Newcastle  Daily  Chronicle,  he  found 
that  "  up  in  the  north  here,  if  one  has  a  passion  for  the 
finer   letters,   one   must   possess   his  insulated   soul   in 
silence."     After   reading   "The   Making   of   Viola"   ("I 
cannot  tell  you,"  he  wrote  to  W.  M.  from  Newcastle, 
"what  I    think  of   the   angelic   ingenuousness   of   that 
poem  ;  it  exercised  over  me  an  instant  fascination  from 
which  I  never  shall  escape  ")  he  heard  nothing  more  of 
Thompson  till  the  publication  of  Poems.     His  welcome 
of   that   volume    is    quoted   in   another    page.       Poems 
came  to  him  while  he  was  writing  "leaders,"  and  his 
brother,  already  Thompson-mad,  declaimed  "The  Hound 
of  Heaven  "  beside  a  desk  where  politics  and  poetry  have 
fought  hotly  for  the  field,  and  where  they  have  been 
known  to  embrace  as  unexpectedly  as  Botticelli's  angels 
and  shepherds.     "  I  was  obdurate  and  a  little  irritated 
when    these   'snatches    of    Uranian    antiphon'    broke 
grandly  through  my  comments  on  the  Russo-German 
commercial  treaty,  or  Professor  Garner's  theories  about 
the    garrulous    gorilla."      One    marvels    that    the    gar- 
rulous gorilla  leader  was   perfectly  intelligible   in   next 

122 


Enter  Mr.   Garvin 

morning's  Chronicle.  Mr.  Garvin's  readers  could  not 
guess  that  Thompson's  poems  were  already  beginning 
"to  swarm  in  his  head  like  bees."  He  contrives  to  write 
about  treaties,  or  make  them,  so  that  half  the  world 
knows  nothing  of  the  winged  muse  at  his  elbow.  She 
herself  may  have  sometimes  thought  him  obdurate,  for 
she  has  never  yet  succeeded  in  marring  a  "leader." 
Letters  from  Mr.  Garvin,  written  ten  years  later,  were 
kept  among  Francis's  few  valued  possessions.  The  two 
were  to  meet  at  Palace  Court  in  1894  and  at  many 
other  dates. 

My  father  had  also  the  satisfaction  of  printing  several 
of  the  poems  ("  Daisy,  A  Song  of  Youth  and  Age  "  and 
"  To  my  Godchild  ")  in  his  anthology,  The  Child  set  in  the 
Midst,  by  Modern  Poets,  the  first  book  in  which  anything  of 
F.  T.'s  had  appeared.  Thus  to  W.  M.  in  his  preface  fell 
the  task  of  writing  of  him  as  one  "who  has  eluded 
fame  as  long  as  Shelley  did,  but  cannot  elude  it  longer. 
To  most  readers  the  poems  will  come  as  the  revelation 
of  a  new  personality  in  poetry,  the  last  discovered  of 
the  Immortals." 

Francis's  own  chronicle  of  the  period  is  found  in  a 
letter  to  Canon  Carroll,  a  middle-man  to  whom  he 
could  write  with  somewhat  less  difficulty  than  to  his 
family  : — 

"A.D.  1890.     Finished  August  12.     Begun,  Heaven  knows  when. 

[May  1890.] 

"  Dear  Canon, — I  must  beg  your  and  everybody's 
pardon  for  my  long  silence.  The  fact  is  that  I  have 
been  for  months  in  a  condition  of  acute  mental  misery, 
frequently  almost  akin  to  mania,  stifling  the  production 
of  everything  except  poetry,  and  rendering  me  quite 
incapable  of  sane  letter-writing.  It  has  ended  in  my 
return  to  London,  and  I  am  immensely  relieved ;  for 
the  removal  of  the  opium  had  quite  destroyed  my  power 
of  bearing  the  almost  unbroken  solitude  in  which  I 
found  myself.     As  for  my  prospects,  unfortunately  the 

123 


Literary   Beginnings 

walls  of  the  Protestant  periodical  press  remain  still 
unshaken  and  to  shake.  I  have  done  recently  a  review 
of  Lilly's  Century  of  Revolution  for  the  Register,  which 
has,  I  fancy,  appeared,  but  in  some  number  which  I 
have  not  seen.  Poor  work,  and  I  don't  want  to  see  it. 
Also  a  review  of  Mr.  Sharp's  recent  Life  of  Browning, 
which  may  or  may  not  appear  in  the  Register — it  is  only 
just  finished.  No  doubt  you  saw  in  the  famous  January 
Merry  England  Browning's  letter  about  me.  It  is,  I  see, 
alluded  to  in  Mr.  Sharp's  Life.  Sharp's  book  has  been 
remarkably  successful,  no  doubt  because  it  has  come 
out  just  during  the  Browning  boom,  and  has  no  rival. 
But  it  is  badly  written,  and  therefore  very  difficult  to 
review.  As  for  the  verses  published  in  this  month's 
Merry  England,  don't  know  why  they  were  published  at 
all.  Mr.  Meynell  told  me  himself  that  he  did  not  care 
particularly  for  them,  because  they  were  too  like  a  poem 
of  Mrs. -Browning's.  (You  will  find  the  poem — a  poem 
on  Pan  making  a  pipe  out  of  a  reed — where  it  first 
appeared,  namely,  in  one  of  your  two  old  volumes  of 
the  Cornhill  Magazine.  There  I  read  it ;  and  it  is  a 
great  favourite  of  mine.  The  last  two  stanzas,  with 
their  sudden  deeply  pathetic  turn  of  thought  are  most 
felicitous,  I  think.)  The  verses  on  Father  Perry  in  last 
month's  Merry  England  were  the  first  verses  of  mine 
that  attracted  any  praise  from  Catholic  outsiders.  An 
old  priest  wrote  from  Norwich  expressing  his  admira- 
tion ;  and  Father  Philip  Fletcher  also  praised  them  to 
Mr.  Meynell. 

"This  must  have  been  .grateful  to  Mr.  Meynell,  for 
his  previous  experience  had  been  very  different.  Good 
Uncle  Edward  (whom  I  shall  write  to  after  you,  now 
that  I  am  taking  up  my  arrears  of  correspondence) 
writing  about  my  first  two  little  poems,  liked  'The 
Passion  of  Mary,'  but  used  words  about  '  Dream  Tryst ' 
that  usually  bear  a  not  very  pleasant  signification.  Who 
do  you  think  chose  to  put  himself  in  a  ferment  about 

124 


He  writes  to  Manchester 

the   'Ode'?    Canon   T !     When  the  editor  of  the 

Tablet  was  in  Manchester,  Canon   T attacked  him 

about  the  article  on  me  which  appeared  in  that  paper. 
What,  he  asked,  was  the  'Ode  '  all  about  ?  He  couldn't 
in  the  least  understand  what  it  was  all  about.  But  even 
if  he  had  understood  it,  he  was  quite  sure  that  it  was 
not  a  thing  which  ought  to  have  appeared  in  a  Catholic 
magazine  !  And  Mr.  Meynell  subsequently  received  an 
anonymous  letter,  in  which  he  was  warned  against  publish- 
ing anything  more  of  mine,  since  it  would  be  found  in 
the  end  that  paganism  was  at  the  bottom  of  it.  This 
with  regard  to  me,  who  began  my  literary  career  with  an 
elaborate  indictment  of  the  ruin  which  the  re-introduc- 
tion of  the  pagan  spirit  must  bring  upon  poetry  !  As 
for  the  'Song  of  the  Hours,'  to  which  you  referred,  Mr. 
Meynell  was  greatly  pleased  with  it ;  but  considered 
that  while  it  avoided  the  violence  of  diction  which 
deformed  the  '  Ode,'  it  was  not  equal  to  that  in  range 
of  power. 


"  Since  I  wrote  the  foregoing  pages  a  considerable 
time  has  elapsed.  How  long,  I  do  not  know,  for  they 
were  written  at  intervals,  and  so  were  not  dated.  My 
health  has  been  consistently  bad  ;  though  I  have  had, 
and  have,  nothing  definite  the  matter  with  me,  except 
dyspepsia  and  constant  colds.  My  writing  powers  have 
deserted  me,  and  I  have  suffered  failure  after  failure,  till 
I  have  been  too  despondent  to  have  any  heart  for  writ- 
ing to  you.  Much,  no  doubt,  is  due  to  this  infernal 
weather.  Confined  to  the  house  and  deprived  of  sun- 
light, I  droop  like  a  moulting  canary.  It  was  not  so 
when  you  knew  me  ;  but  my  vital  power  has  been 
terribly  sapped  since  then.  Only  air  and  exercise  keep 
me  going  now.  As  to  the  literary  enterprises  alluded  to 
in  the  early  part  of  this  letter,  they  have  successively 
failed. 

I25 


Literary   Beginnings 

"The  lines  on  Father  Perry  have  taken  hold  of  Merry 
England  readers  as  nothing  of  mine  has  done.  Mr. 
Meynell  had  several  letters  from  ecclesiastics  (including 
one  from  the  head  of  a  monastery — I  forget  where  or  in 
what  Order)  expressing  admiration  of  the  poem  ;  and 
the  sub-editor  of  the  Tablet  had  one  from  some  priest  in 
Liverpool.  I  meant  the  thing  merely  for  a  pretty,  grace- 
fully turned  fancy  ;  what  the  Elizabethans  would  have 
called  an  excellent  conceit.  That  it  is  nothing  more, 
I  quite  agree  with  Mr.  Blackburn,  whose  judgment  I 
much  value.  In  the  first  place  he  generally  represents 
Mrs.  Meynell's  judgment,  who  is  his  guide  and  friend  in 
everything — and  such  a  guide  and  friend  no  other  young 
man  in  England  has.  In  the  second  place  he  has  an 
excellent  judgment  of  his  own.  Of  Mr.  Meynell's 
opinion,  I  know  merely  that  he  dropped  me  a  post-card 
saying  the  poem  was  '  very  fine.' 

"Another  very  small  poem  on  Shelley,  Mrs.  Meynell 
has  pronounced  'a  little  masterpiece.'  The  expression, 
however,  may  have  been  hastily  and  inaccurately 
reported  by  Mrs.  Blackburn  ;  I  prefer  to  take  it  with 
caution.  Another  poem,  a  sonnet,  I  have  heard 
nothing  about ;  but  I  have  never  yet  really  succeeded 
with  a  sonnet.  I  did  a  little  minor  work  on  the  Tablet 
during  the  editor's  absence — part  of  the  Chronicle  of 
the  Week,  and  two  or  three  of  the  Notes,  including  a 
paragraph  on  Rudyard  Kipling  and  a  ferocious  little 
onslaught  on  the  trashy  abomination  which  Swin- 
burne has  contributed  to  the  Fortnightly.  In  last 
week's  Scots  Observer  appeared  an  exquisite  little  poem 
by  Mrs.  Meynell — the  first  she  has  written  since  her 
marriage.  A  long  silence,  disastrous  for  literature  !  The 
poem  is  a  perfect  miniature  example  of  her  most  lovelily 
tender  work  ;  and  is,  like  all  her  best,  of  a  signal 
originality  in  its  central  idea  no  less  than  in  its  de- 
velopment. 

126 


Prose  in   Embryo 

"  Most  women  of  genius — George  Eliot,  Charlotte 
Bronte,  and  Mrs.  Browning,  who,  indeed,  alludes  to  her 
husband's  penetration  in  seeing  beyond  '  this  mask  of  me ' 
— have  been  decidedly  plain.  That  Mrs.  Meynell  is  not  like 
them  you  may  judge  from  '  Her  Portrait.'  Nor  will  she 
attain  any  rapid  notice  like  them.  Her  work  is  of  that 
subtly  delicate  order  which — as  with  Coleridge,  for 
instance — needs  to  soak  into  men  for  a  generation  or 
two  before  it  gets  adequate  recognition.  Nevertheless 
it  is  something  to  have  won  the  admiration  of  men  like 
Rossetti,  Ruskin,  and,  shall  I  add,  the  immortal  Oscar 
Wilde  ?  (A  witty,  paradoxical  writer,  who,  nevertheless, 
meo  judicio,  will  do  nothing  permanent  because  he  is  in 
earnest  about  nothing.)  Known  or  unknown,  she  cares 
as  little  as  St.  Francis  de  Sales  would  have  cared  what 
might  become  of  his  writings. 

"At  present  my  prose  article  is  like  a  lady  about 
whom  Mr.  Blackburn  told  me — renowned  for  her  mala- 
propisms.  A  friend  met  her  in  Paris,  and  was  about 
to  address  her  when  the  lady  put  up  her  hand :  '  Hush, 
don't  recognise  me !  I  am  travelling  in  embryo.'  So 
is  my  prose  article.  And  now  I  think  this  letter 
should  be  big  enough  to  cover  a  multitude  of  sins  of 
omission  in  my  correspondence.  I  see  that  you  and 
a  number  of  our  friends  were  at  Ushaw  for  the  Exhibi- 
tion week.  The  death  of  my  old  master,  Mr.  Formby, 
to  which  you  referred  in  your  postcard,  I  saw  in  the 
Register.  I  was  deeply  sorry.  Wishing  not  to  bring 
myself  under  anyone's  notice  until  I  felt  my  position 
more  assured,  I  had  abstained  from  following  my  first 
impulse,  which  was  to  send  him  a  copy  of  the  magazine 
containing  my 'Ode,' and  accompanying  it  by  a  letter. 
Now  I  wish  I  had  pocketed  pride,  and  done  so.  Not 
knowing  my  circumstances,  he  may  have  thought  I 
had  forgotten  him.  But  I  had  not  forgotten  him,  as 
I  will  venture  to  think  he  had  not  forgotten  me. 

"  With  best  love  to  my  father,  and  to  Polly  when  you 

127 


Literary  Beginnings 

next  may  see  her  (Maggie,  I  suppose,  will  by  this  time 
be  beyond  the  reach  of  messages),  I  remain,  yours 
affectionately,  Francis  Thompson. 

"  P.S. — My  address  is  still  that  given  at  the  beginning 
of  this  letter,  which  is  so  enormous  that  I  shall  have 
to  send  it  in  two  envelopes.  I  am  afraid  that  you  will 
have  to  read  it  by  easy  stages,  unless  you  subdivide 
labour  by  calling  in  your  curate.  By  the  way,  I  spoke 
of  my  lines  on  Shelley  as  being  risky  for  a  Catholic 
audience.  Let  me  explain  the  reason,  lest  you  should 
suppose  something  worse.  They  are  founded  on  a 
letter  given  in  Trelawny's  Recollections — a  letter  from 
Jane  Williams  to  Shelley  two  days  before  his  death. 
The  poem  is  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  dead  Shelley, 
and  is  supposed  to  be  addressed  by  the  poet's  spirit 
to  Jane  while  his  body  is  tossing  on  the  waters  of 
Spezzia.  Now  Jane  Williams  was  a  married  woman. 
I  have  carefully  avoided  anything  which  might  not  be 
addressed  by  one  warm  friend  to  another  ;  but  Catholic 

readers  (witness  Canon  T )  are  apt  to  shy  sometimes 

at  shadows.  .  .  .  When  a  poet  writes  love-verses  to  a 
lady,  and  gives  them  to  her  husband  for  her,  it  is 
surely  evident  that  neither  pistols  nor  the  divorce  court 
are  necessary.     Now  that  is  what  Shelley  did." 

To  Pantasaph  in  Wales,  where  he  lodged  at  the  gates 
of  the  Capuchin  Monastery,  he  went  early  in  1892.  His 
first  business  was  the  passing  of  Poems  for  the  press. 
Busy  over  the  proof  sheets,  he  writes  in  answer  to 
some  suggestions  of  my  father's  as  to  the  dedication  : — 

"  I  cannot  consent  to  the  withdrawal  of  your  name. 
You  have  of  course  the  right  to  refuse  to  accept  the  dedi- 
cation to  yourself.  But  in  that  case  I  have  the  right 
to  withdraw  the  dedication  altogether,  as  I  should  cer- 
tainly do.  I  should  belie  the  truth  and  my  own  feelings 
if   I   represented   Mrs.   Meynell   as  the   sole    person   to 

128 


The  Clogged  Wheels  Move 

whom  I  owe  what  it  has  been  given  to  me  to  accom- 
plish in  poetry.  Suffer  this — the  sole  thing,  as  un- 
fortunate necessities  of  exclusion  would  have  it,  which 
links  this  first,  possibly  this  only  volume,  with  your 
name — suffer  this  to  stand.  I  will  feel  deeply  hurt  if 
you  refuse  me  this  gratification." 

A  slight  difficulty  in  sight,  he  writes  on  the  impulse: — 

"  I  find  Lane  has  already  announced  the  poems  in  his 
book-list,  so  I  am  bound  to  go  through  with  them  ; 
else  I  would  let  them  go  to  the  devil.  I  made  myself 
ill  with  over-study,  and  have  been  obliged  to  give  my 
head  three  weeks'  entire  rest.  But  I  am  much  better 
again  now.  Inwardly  I  suffer  like  old  Nick  ;  but  the 
blessed  mountain  air  keeps  up  my  body,  and  for  the 
rest — my  Lady  Pain  and  I  are  au  mieux.  I  send  you 
two  or  three  odd  bits  of  verse  ;  but  I  hardly  think  you 
will  find  anything  in  them.  .  .  .  The  country  here  is 
just  beginning  to  get  beautiful,  and  I  am  feeling  the 
first  quickening  pulse  of  spring.  Lord,  it  is  good 
for  me  to  be  here — very  good.  The  clogged  wheels  in 
me  are  slowly  beginning  to  move." 

The  proofs  reached  him  by  way  of  Palace  Court : — 

"47  Palace  Court,  July  19,  1893. 

"  My  dear  Francis, — I  am  very  glad  that  Mr.  Lane  asked  me 
to  send  you  the  first  pages  of  the  book — your  poems,  to  which 
Wilfrid  and  I  have  so  long  looked  forward.  It  is  a  great  happiness 
to  me  to  do  so.  ...  I  cannot  express  to  you  how  beautiful  your 
poems  are. — Always,  my  dear  child,  your  affectionate 

Alice  Meynell." 

And  again,  in  August,  my  mother  writes  : — 

"  Here  are  your  wonderful  poems — most  wonderful  and  beauti- 
ful. It  is  a  great  event  to  me  to  send  you  these  proofs.  You 
will,  I  trust,  change  the  title, '  The  Dead  of  Westminster.'  People 
will  think  of  nothing  but  Westminster  Abbey.  Please  send  me 
the  revises,  sixteen  pages  at  a  time." 

129  I 


Literary   Beginnings 

F.  T.  to  A.  M.  concerning  final  suggestions  made  in 
proof  by  Coventry  Patmore  and  my  parents  : — 

"  Dear  Mrs.  Meynell, — I  have  received  the  finding 
of  the  Court  Martial  over  which  you  presided ;  to  which 
the  undersigned  begs  to  make  answer,  in  form  and 
manner  following — 

"  i.  To  the  first  indictment  he  pleadeth  guilty,  and 
knows  not  how  he  omitted  to  alter  the  word,  as  had 
been  his  own  intention.  He  begs,  therefore,  that  for 
1  soilured '  may  be  substituted  '  stealthwon.' 

"2.  In  answer  to  the  third  indictment  he  submits  him- 
self to  the  judgment  of  the  court,  and  desires  that  Domns 
Tua  shall  be  omitted,  and  the  requisite  alteration  made 
in  the  numbering  of  the  poems. 

"  3.  In  regard  to  the  second  indictment,  having  already 
considered  the  matter,  he  refuseth  to  submit  himself  to 
the  court,  remaineth  en  contumace,  and  is  prepared,  in 
token  of  his  unalterable  resolution,  to  suffer  the  utmost 
rigours  of  the  critics." 

And  he  continues,  all  on  account  of  a  misprinted 
comma  in  a  magazine  : — 

"  Now  I  carry  the  war  into  the  enemy's  country. 

"  I  do  claim  to  wit  that  a  foul  and  malicious  alteration 
has  been  committed  on  the  body  of  our  King  Phcebus' 
lieges,  in  a  magazine  bearing  the  style  and  denomina- 
tion of  Merry  England.  And  I  hereby  warn  you,  that  if 
the  same  outrage  is  extended  to  the  same  unoffending 
poem  in  my  volume,  I  shall  hold  you  all  and  severally 
responsible.  Hereunder  follow  the  details  of  my 
accusation.  There  should  be  no  fresh  stanza  and  no 
stop  after  'fertilise.'  The  pause  should  come  after 
'impregnating'  in  the  previous  line;  and  then  the  next 
lines  run  on  (as  in  the  corrected  pages  I  returned  on 
Thursday)  : 

For  flowers  that  night-wings  fertilise 
Mock  down  the  stars'  unsteady  eyes,  &c. 
130 


A   Boast  of  Intimacy 

"  The  meaning  (which  I  must  have  perfectly  clear) 
is  that  flowers  which  are  fertilised  by  night-insects  con- 
front the  moon  and  stars  with  a  glance  more  sleepless 
and  steady  than  their  own.  Surely  anyone  who  knows 
a  forest  from  a  flower-pot  is  aware  that  flowers  which 
are  fertilised  by  night-insects  necessarily  open  at 
night,  and  emit  at  night  their  odours  by  which  those 
insects  are  attracted.  The  lines  unfortunately  altered 
are,  in  fact,  explanatory  of  the  image  which  has  gone 
before. 

"  But  I  sometimes  wonder  whether  the  best  of  you 
Londoners  do  not  regard  nature  as  a  fine  piece  of  the 
Newlyn  School,  kindly  lent  by  the  Almighty  for  public 
exhibition.  Few  seem  to  realise  that  she  is  alive,  has 
almost  as  many  ways  as  a  woman,  and  is  to  be  lived 
with,  not  merely  looked  at.  People  are  just  as  bad  here 
for  that  matter.  I  am  sick  of  being  told  to  go  here  and 
to  go  there,  because  I  shall  have  '  a  splendid  view/  I 
protest  against  nature  being  regarded  as  on  view.  If  a 
man  told  me  to  take  a  three-quarter  view  of  the  woman 
I  loved  because  I  should  find  her  a  fine  composition, 
I  fear  I  should  incline  to  kick  him  extremely,  and  ask 
whether  he  thought  her  five  feet  odd  of  canvas.  Having 
companioned  nature  in  her  bed-chamber  no  less  than 
her  presence  room,  what  I  write  of  her  is  not  lightly  to 
be  altered." x 

He  is  a  Gascon  for  boasting  his  knowledge  of  Nature's 
bed-chamber  ;  but  he  had  some  reason.  In  Wales  he 
slept  a  night  in  the  woods.  Daring,  he  entered.  One 
night  means  much  for  such  as  hold  eternity  in  an  hour. 
For  Francis,  any  single  sunrise  opened  a  Day  of  Crea- 
tion, and  any  sunset  awoke  in  him  a  comprehension  of 
finality  and  death,  of  rebirth  and  infinity.  The  increase 
and  decrease  of  darkness,  the  lights  of  diminishing  and 

1  For  all  that,  Mr.  Wilfrid  Blunt,  who  walked  over  his  own  acres  with 
Thompson  as  his  guest,  wrote: — "  He  could  not  distinguish  the  oak  from  the 
elm,  nor  did  he  know  the  name  of  the  commonest  flowers  of  the  field." 

I31 


Literary   Beginnings 

approaching  day,  were  crowded  into   that  single  per- 
formance. 

"  What  you  say  of  your  night  in  the  woods/'  writes  Mrs.  Hamilton 
King,  "  is  interesting.  But  it  needed  courage.  I  should  never 
expect  to  sleep  in  a  wood  at  night.  The  wood  sleeps  by  day  and 
wakes  by  night,  and  this  grows  more  and  more  terrible  and  true  as 
you  approach  the  tropical  forest,  where  no  man  alone  can  survive 
the  night.  '  At  night  all  the  beasts  of  the  forest  do  move,'  as  the 
Psalmist  says." 

"In  regard  to  the  alterations  I  now  enclose  to  you 
in  the  '  Fallen  Yew,'  by  the  correction  of  two  words  I 
hope  that  I  have  removed  the  obscurity,  grammatical  and 
otherwise.  In  '  Monica  Thought  Dying  '  I  have  simply 
substituted  '  eleven  '  for  '  thirteen.'  The  word  '  eleven ' 
fits  the  metre  perfectly  well  without  altering  the  rest  of 
the  line  ;  since  the  final  'e'  is  a  natural  elision.  Most 
elisions  are  artificial  and  conscious.  Such  is  the  elision 
of  the  '  a '  in  '  seraph,'  whereby  the  line  in  the  '  Fallen 
Yew '  does  scan,  and  so  needs  no  alteration  on  that  score. 
But  there  are  a  few  words  wherein  we  make  unconscious 
elision,  even  in  daily  conversation.  The  final  '  en  '  after 
a  'v'  we  always  so  elide;  and  consequently  it  is  the 
exception  for  a  poet  to  count  the  final  'en'  in  such 
words  as  '  heaven,'  '  seven,'  or  '  eleven.'  " 

It  is  almost  the  rule  that  the  author  on  the  point  of 
publishing  should  flout  his  public  : — 

"  As  for  '  immeditatably  '  it  is  in  all  respects  the  one  and 
only  right  word  for  the  line  ;  as  regards  the  exact  shade 
of  meaning  and  feeling,  and  as  regards  the  rhythmical 
movement  it  gives  to  the  line.  So  it  must  absolutely 
and  without  any  question  stand — woe's  me  for  the  public ! 
But  indeed,  what  is  the  public  doing  dans  cette  galere  ? 
I  believe,  it  is  true,  the  public  has  an  odd  kind  of  pre- 
judice that  poems  are  written  for  its  benefit.  It  might 
as  well  suppose  that  when  a  woman  loves,  she  bears  chil- 
dren for  its  benefit ;  or  (in  the  case  of  the  poem  in  ques- 
tion) that  when  a  man  is  hurt,  he  bleeds  for  its  benefit." 

132 


The   Flouted  Public 

But  whether  he  will  or  not,  he  bleeds  and  writes  for 
mankind.  If  he  stands  by  his  "  immeditatably,"  it  is 
only  because  he  knows  that  the  public  will  come  to 
stand  by  it  too.  He  chooses  to  be  obstinate  on  behalf 
of  someone  who  waits  for  the  word.  In  flouting  his 
public,  the  poet  is  like  a  man  who,  scattering  sweets 
for  children,  tosses  them  away  only  that  they  shall  be 
recovered  ;  or,  hiding  them,  is  distressed  if  they  are  not 
found.  Thompson  put  his  sweets  in  difficult  places ; 
but  only  that  he  and  the  others  might  have  the  keener 
recreation. 

After  more  sheets  had  been  corrected  and  returned  to 
Palace  Court,  he  writes  : — 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  they  read  better  than  I  had 
expected — particularly  the  large  additions  to  '  To  a 
Poet  Breaking  Silence,' 1  which  were  written  at  a  time 
when  I  was  by  no  means  very  fit  for  poetry.  Your 
interest  in  the  volume  is  very  dear  to  me.  I  cannot 
say  I  myself  feel  any  elation  about  it.  I  am  past  the 
time  when  such  things  brought  me  any  elation. 

"  I  have  not  either  of  your  books,2  and  of  course  should 
most  greatly  value  them.  I  need  not  say  how  deeply 
I  rejoice  at  your  success." 

1  The  poem  by  which  my  mother  broke  silence  was  "  Veni  Creator." 

2  Among  the  things  he  wrote  when  A.  M.'s  book  came  to  hand  is  this  of 
"  Domus  Augusta,"  an  essay  they  had  discussed  before.  "Never  again  meditate 
the  suppression  of  your  gloomy  passages.  It  is  a  most  false  epithet  for  anything 
you  could  ever  write.  You  might  as  well  impeach  of  gloominess  my  favourite 
bit  in  '  Timon,'  with  the  majestic  melancholy  of  its  cadence — 

'  My  long  sickness 
Of  wealth  and  living  now  begins  to  mend, 
And  nothing  brings  me  all  things.' 

Both  that  passage  and  yours  are  poignant ;  both  are  deeply  sad  ;  while 
yours  has  an  added  searchingness  which  makes  it  (in  De  Quincey's  phrase) 
veritably  'heart-shattering';  but  how  can  you  call  'gloomy'  what  so  nobly 
and  resignedly  faces  the  terror  it  evokes  ?  " 


133 


HI!  mJiB 


47   PALACE  COURT 


CHAPTER   VII:    "POEMS" 

In  1893  Messrs.  Elkin  Mathews  and  John  Lane  pub- 
lished Poems,  a  square  book  in  brown  boards  with 
gold  circles  and  a  frontispiece  by  Laurence  Housman. 
The  poet  viewed  it  with  pleasure,  and  elsewhere  the 
praise  and  blame  it  received  were  both  whole- 
hearted : — 

"  Many  thanks  for  the  copies.  The  book  is  indeed 
beautifully  got  up,"  he  writes.  "  I  have  to  thank  you  for 
the  Chronicle  and  to  thank  Mr.  Le  Gallienne  for  his 
article.  Such  unselfish  enthusiasm  in  a  young  poet  for 
the  work  of  a  brother  poet  is  as  rare  as  it  is  graceful 
in  these  times,  when  most  litterateurs  have  adopted  the 
French  author's  maxim:  'There  are  no  writers  of 
genius  except  myself  and  a  few  friends — and  I  am  not 
certain  about  my  friends.'  " 

And  later  : — 

"I  have  read  in  the  Register  with  great  surprise  that 
the  first  edition  is  exhausted.  I  am  even  more  glad  for 
my  publisher's  sake  than  for  my  own.  The  St.  James 's 
article,  as  unusually  appreciative  as  that  of  the  Chronicle , 
I  am  very  pleased  with." 

Recurring,  in  another  letter  to  W.  M.,  to  Mr.  Le 
Gallienne's  Chronicle  article,  he  writes  : — 

"When  the  first  whirl  of  language  is  over  (was  it  not 
a  sin  of  my  own  former  prose  when  I  waxed  enthusi- 
astic?) he  settles  down  to  appreciation  which  is  at  the 

135 


"  Poems" 

same  time  criticism.  Will  it  be  believed,  however,  that 
after  deprecating  superlatives  I  am  actually  disposed  to 
rank  myself  higher  than  Mr.  Le  Gallienne's  final  sentence 
might  seem  to  imply.  I  absolutely  think  that  my  poetry 
is  'greater'  than  any  work  by  a  new  poet  which  has 
appeared  since  Rossetti.  Unless,  indeed,  the  greater  work 
to  which  the  critic  referred  was  Mrs.  Meynell's.  I 
frankly  admit  that  her  poetry  has  exquisite  unclamorous 
qualities  beside  which  all  the  fireworks  of  my  own  are 
much  less  enduring  things.  Otherwise,  I  will  not  vail 
my  crest  to  Henley,  or  Robert  Bridges,  or  even  William 
Watson.  For  the  rest  I  have  nothing  but  warm  and 
surprised  gratitude  for  your  untiring  efforts  on  my 
behalf.  I  am  very  pleased  with  all  the  letters  you  have 
sent  me,  particularly  Vincent  O'Sullivan's  from  Oxford. 
Am  I  going  to  found  a  school  there  ? 

"  The  minor  versifier  has  at  any  rate  the  asterisks  in 
a  '  Judgment  in  Heaven '  which  he  can  catch  on  to. 
There  he  can  have  the  latest  device  in  poetry,  the  whole 
apparatus  procurable  at  my  printer's.  I  have  not  for- 
gotten that  it  was  Le  Gallienne's  admiration  for  the 
specimen  sent  to  Lane  which  finally  decided  the  publica- 
tion of  my  book ;  and  I  should  indeed  be  sorry  to 
know  that  I  had  repaid  him  by  wounding  his  feelings. 

F.  T." 

In  part  his  was  but  a  share  in  the  general  welcome 
then  accorded  to  the  poets.  Davidson  was  being  hailed 
with  intense  zest ;  Norman  Gale  himself,  singing  amid 
applause,  offered  congratulations  and  a  review  to  F.  T. 
Only  with  the  appearance  of  Sister  Songs  and  New 
Poems  was  he  roundly  and  viciously  abused.  But 
already  round  the  standard  of  "  An  Old  Fogey  "  (Andrew 
Lang),  raised  in  the  Contemporary  Review,  February  1894, 
apropos  of  "The  Young  Men,"  there  was  a  considerable 
gathering.  From  the  press  cuttings  of  the  year  a  good 
crop  may  be  got  of  such  sentences  as  : — ■ 

136 


He  Reads  the   Reviews 

"  I  must  agree  with  Mr.  L.'s  judgment  of  Mr.  Francis  Thompson. 
His  faults  are  fundamental.  Though  he  uses  the  treasure  of  the 
Temple,  he  is  not  a  religious  poet.  The  note  of  a  true  spiritual 
passion  never  once  sounds  in  his  book.  .  .  .  He  owes  much  to  the 
perseverance  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Meynell  and  the  Catholics  whom  they 
influence." 1 

It  fell  to  a  critic  on  the  Westminster  Gazette  to  do  the 
out  and  out  "  slating."  Leading  off  with  quotations  from 
"A  Judgment  in  Heaven,"  he  asks  "Is  it  poetry?  is  it 
sense  ?  is  it  English  ?  "  His  case,  with  such  phrases  as 
"  Supportlessly  congest "  well  to  the  fore,  was  good. 
Quoting  "  To  My  God-child  "  as  a  happier  example,  he 
concluded,  "This,  too,  is  somewhat  wild,  but  it  means 
something." 

"The  poet  of  a  small  Catholic  clique"  was  a  descrip- 
tion given  by  one  of  the  two  or  three  writers  who 
constituted  the  opposition  to  his  claims  to  a  great  place 
in  English  literature.  They  all  made  a  common  dis- 
covery— Francis  Thompson  was  a  Catholic. 

"  We  had,"  said  the  Weekly  Register,  "  Mr.  de  Vere,  Mr.  Wilfrid 
Blunt,  Mrs.  Hamilton  King,  Mr.  Coventry  Patmore,  to  name 
no  others.  We  need  not  then  have  awaited  Mr.  Thompson's 
arrival  to  undermine  the  Press  of  England  in  the  interests  of 
'  Sectarianism  ' !  " 

It  came  to  pass  that  this  poet  of  fewest  friends  was 

1  His  work  having  appeared  in  a  Catholic  magazine,  it  was  known  to  the 
Catholic  papers.  Apart  from  the  Weekly  Register,  where  notices  of  his 
periodical  writings  were  printed,  priority  belongs  to  The  Tablet,  which  printed, 
September,  1889,  and  19th  July,  1890,  serious  notices  of  the  issues  of  Merry 
England  containing  the  "Ode  to  the  Setting  Sun "  and  "The  Hound  of 
Heaven " ;  and  to  Miss  Katharine  Tynan,  who  quoted  the  whole  of "  The 
Making  of  Viola"  from  Merry  England,  May,  1892,  in  the  Irish  Independent 
in  the  course  of  the  same  month.  The  Catholic  papers  made  no  particular 
sign  of  welcome  when  the  books  themselves  were  published,  but  it  may  be 
noted  that  the  Ave  Maria,  Notre  Dame,  Indiana,  had  praise  for  the  much- 
abused  extravagance  of  the  opening  of  the  "  Corymbus  for  Autumn."  To  the 
Catholic  World,  February,  1895,  Mr.  Walter  Lecky  contributed  many  compli- 
ments and  several  biographical  inaccuracies.  In  the  secular  press  of  America 
F.  T.  fared  less  well.  The  New  York  Post,  19th  of  January,  1898,  found 
his  work".  .  .  not  altogether  hopeful,  since  his  impulses  are  wayward,  like 
his  life."  The  Critic,  July,  1894,  would  by  no  means  allow  Browning's 
phrase,  "  conspicuous  abilities,"  to  pass  unchallenged. 

137 


"  Poems" 

charged  not  only  with  log-rolling,  but  with  belonging 
to  a  "clique"  that  had  its  headquarters  at  Palace  Court. 
The  fact  was  that  his  few  friends  were  even  shyer  than 
his  friends'  friends  of  praising  him  publicly.  One  young 
reviewer  (the  "Vernon"  already  mentioned)  came  at  the 
stroke  of  morning's  eight  to  shout  through  their  bed- 
room doors  his  new  discovered  joy — a  poem  in  Merry 
England  by  F.  T.  "  I  know  at  last,"  was  his  loud  con- 
fidence, "that  there  is  a  poet  who  may  worthily  take  a 
place  as  Shakespeare's  second."  But  in  the  papers  this 
critic's  notices  were  very  halting  :  his  praises  did  not 
call  through  the  press  as  they  did  through  the  key- 
hole. The  "clique"  is  proved  in  his  notice  the  most 
unprofitable  and  unfriendly  of  companies.  In  Henley's 
National  Observer  he  writes  : — 

"  Mr.  Francis  Thompson  is  a  young  poet  of  considerable  parts, 
whose  present  danger  lies  in  the  possibility  of  his  spoiling.  Having 
recently  put  forth  to  the  world  a  book  of  poems,  modest  enough  in 
bulk,  he  was  presently  attacked  by  a  most  formidable  conspiracy 
of  adulation.  .  .  .  Few  writers  of  really  distinguished  quality 
have  been  introduced  to  the  world  under  the  shelter  of  such  a 
farrago  of  nonsense." 

This  writer,  almost  the  only  personal  friend  of 
Thompson's  on  the  literary  press,  does  not  confine  his 
strictures  to  the  alleged  "promoters"  of  Poems.  He 
points  to  passages,  ungainly  and  ugly,  which  explain 
why  the  book  as  a  whole  "  proves  repellent  to  the 
majority  of  readers"  ;  but 

"  Let  him  take  heart,  then,  and  sedulously  pursue  a  path  of  most 
ascetic  improvement.  A  word,  too,  in  his  ear ;  let  him  not  use 
the  universe  quite  so  irresponsibly  for  a  playground.  To  toss 
the  stars  about, '  to  swing  the  earth,'  &c,  is  just  a  little  cheap." 

The  same  friend  had  his  say  in  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette 
and  the  Tablet,  so  that  there  was  indeed  one  "  con- 
spirator"  among  his  reviewers.  With  all  such  things 
Francis  was   well  pleased ;    he   enjoyed    the    smart   of 

138 


The  Clever  Donkey 

them,  and  cut  them  out  and  pasted  them  in  a  scrap-book 
along  with  the  panegyrics  : — 

11  In  regard  to  Vernon,"  he  wrote,  "  I  am  quite 
satisfied  with  his  articles.  You  must  consider  that  he 
and  I  have  in  the  past  exhorted  each  other  to  a  Spartan 
virtue  of  criticism  when  one  deals  with  a  friend — if  one 
thinks  a  friend  can  stand  it.  In  taking  placidly  such 
unflinching  candours  there  is  a  glow  of  self-approving 
delight  akin  to  that  afforded  by  taking  the  discipline, 
or  breaking  the  ice  to  wash,  or  getting  up  in  the  morning, 
or  any  other  unnatural  act  which  makes  one  feel  blessedly 
above  one's  neighbours." 

Another  of  his  friends  thought  such  treatment  salutary  : 
Coventry  Patmore  to  A.  M.,  February  3,  1894 : — 

"  Lang  is  a  clever  donkey.  It  will  do  F.  T.  nothing  but  good 
to  be  a  little  attacked." 

Coventry  Patmore's  own  article  in  the  Fortnightly ;  July, 
1894,  was  written  before  he  and  Thompson  had  met.  It 
was  easy  for  even  frequent  callers  at  Palace  Court  to 
miss  F.  T.,  since  he  never  kept  appointments.  At  this 
time  A.  M.  wrote  to  F.  T.  : — 

"  I  have  been  much  disappointed  at  not  having  the  opportunity 
of  introducing  you  to  Coventry  Patmore.  He  wished  so  much 
to  see  you.  If  you  knew  the  splendid  praises  he  crowned  you 
with! 

"  He  wants  to  review  your  book.  He  would  have  done  so  in  the 
paper  he  calls  the '  Twopenny  Damn '  l  (don't  be  shocked),  if  it  had 
not  died.    As  it  is,  he  will  do  it  somewhere." 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  critics  knew  neither  the  poet 
nor  his  address.  Even  his  occasional  editors,  among 
whom  was  Mr.  Henry  Newbolt,  were  for  their  conveni- 
ence saved  direct  communication  with  him.     He  knew 

1  The  Anti-Jacobin,  edited  by  Mr.  Frederick  Greenwood 

139 


"  Poems  " 

nobody  ;   and  those  who  knew  everybody  did  not  know 
him.     Mr.  Yeats  wrote  at  his  death  to  W.  M. : — 

"  Now  I  regret  that  I  never  met  him,  except  once  for  a  few 
minutes.  There  seems  to  be  some  strange  power  in  the  forms  of 
excess  that  dissolves,  as  it  were,  the  external  will,  to  make  the 
character  malleable  to  the  internal  will.  An  extreme  idealism  of 
the  imagination  seems  to  be  incompatible  in  almost  all  with  a 
perfectly  harmonious  relation  to  the  mechanics  of  life." 

Another  of  the  circle  of  his  unacquaintance,  Mr. 
Norman  Gale,  writing  as  an  anthologist,  for  permission 
to  quote,  says  to  the  poet  : — 

"  Let  me  take  this  opportunity  of  congratulating  you  from  my 
heart  on  the  success  of  your  book.  I  have  said  what  I  thought 
of  it  in  print.     I  was  candid." 

That,  at  least,  does  not  betoken  the  log-roller.  If 
Thompson  was  one  of  "  a  group  " — it  was  a  day  of  groups 
— it  was  composed  of  cowled  friars  and  the  deaf  Welsh 
hills.  When  from  Mr.  Hugh  Chisholm,  then  the  assistant 
editor  of  the  St.  James  s  Gazette,  and  the  writer  of  an 
appreciative  notice  in  that  paper,  came  a  request,  rein- 
forcing his  printed  admiration,  for  an  autograph  copy 
of  the  "  Daisy  "  the  compliment  was  made  through  a  third 
person,  and  such  personalities  as  his  review  contained 
were  not  based  on  an  acquaintance  with  the  poet. 
Another  stranger,  Mr.  John  Davidson,  wrote,  I  believe, 
the  Speaker  s  praises,  but  disclaimed  any  responsibilities 
for  his  reviews  when  asked,  in  later  years,  if  a  passage 
from  his  article  might  be  quoted — he  never  meant  any- 
thing said  in  reviews,  was  his  afterthought  about 
them.  Nevertheless,  since  his  were  the  words  of  a 
fellow-poet,  I  give  them  : — ■ 

"  Here  are  dominion — domination  over  language,  and  a  sin- 
cerity as  of  Robert  Burns.  .  .  .  We  must  turn  from  Mr.  Thompson, 
the  latest,  and  perhaps  the  greatest,  of  English  Roman  Catholic 
poets  of  post-Reformation  times,  to  the  exalted  Puritan  voice  that 

140 


Log-rolling 


sang  '  At  a  Solemn  Music '  for  a  strain  combining  in  like  manner 
intensity  and  magnificence."  .  .  .  {Of  "Her  Portrait.'''')  "A 
description,  masterful  and  overmastering,  in  which  a  constant 
interchange  of  symbol  between  earthly  and  heavenly  beauty 
pulses  like  day  and  night." 

With  the  publication  of  Sister  Songs  in  1895  the 
same  charge  was  renewed  ;  the  Realm  felt 

"  sorry  for  Mr.  Thompson  to  think  that  he  had  been  spoiled  by 
indiscreet  flatterers.  He  ought  not  to  run  away  with  the  idea 
that  anything  he  chooses  to  write  is  poetry." 

"The  frenzied  paeans  of  his  admirers  by  profession  " 
were  the  words  of  a  leading  critic,  and  might  well  have 
stirred  a  desire  in  Francis  to  explain  that  he  neither  knew 
nor  could  profit  his  reviewers.  When  one  journal  became 
more  explicit  in  its  charges  he  went  so  far  as  to  com- 
pose, but  not  to  despatch,  a  reply  made  principally  on 
somebody  else's  behalf : — 

"  My  business  is,"  he  wrote,  "as  one  of  the — I  suppose 
I  should  say  shameful — seven  pilloried  by  your  critic, 
to  give  my  private  witness  for  Mr.  Le  Gallienne.  The 
gravamen  of  the  charge  against  him  is  not  that  he 
praised  too  effusively  ;  it  is  the  far  more  heinous  accusa- 
tion of  log-rolling — in  other  words,  of  praising  in  return 
for  favours  received,  or  favours  which  it  was  under- 
stood were  to  come.  Here,  then,  are  the  facts  in  my 
own  case.  When  my  book  appeared  it  was  reviewed 
by  Mr.  Le  Gallienne  in  terms  no  less  generous  than 
those  used  by  him  recently  in  the  Weekly  Sun.  When 
his  first  review  appeared  Mr.  Le  Gallienne  and  myself 
were  totally  unacquainted  and  unconnected.  Before 
the  second,  printed  in  the  Weekly  Sun,  we  had  met 
once  casually.  And  this  is  the  whole  extent  of  my 
personal  acquaintance  or  communication  with  one  who 
is  accused  of  praising  me  because  he  is  my  friend. 
Nor  does  the  meanness  anonymously  attributed  to  Mr. 

141  ' 


"  Poems  " 

Le  Gallienne  end  here.  He  is  accused  of  praising  me 
not  only  as  a  friend  but  as  one  whom  I  praise  in  return. 
Allow  me  then  to  say  that  I  have  never  before  or  since 
his  review  of  my  poems  written  a  line  about  him  in  any 
quarter." 

His  reserve  in  public  did  not  mean  that  he  was  so 
little  contentious  that  he  never  smote  his  foes  in  private. 
He  was  full  of  unspoken  arguments,  like  the  man  you 
see  talking  to  himself,  or  smiling  as  he  walks,  and  of 
whom  you  may  be  sure  that  he  is  confounding  or  dis- 
missing an  opponent.  The  solitary  man  is  full  of  good 
answers,  but  they  belong  to  an  interview  from  which, 
over  soon,  he  is  speeding ;  for  his  triumph,  generally,  is 
the  sad  one  of  putting  together  a  repartee  or  clinching 
an  argument — too  late.  So  it  was  with  Thompson.  He 
thought  out  his  brisk  repartees  purely  for  his  own  satis- 
faction and  at  leisure,  and  would  have  blushed  to  answer 
his  belittlers  in  the  open.  But  in  the  mental  "ring,"  in 
the  note-book,  he  occasionally  triumphed  : — 

"  I  need  hardly  say  I  have  not  escaped  the  accusation 
of  belonging  to  a  '  Mutual  Admiration  Society.'  There 
are  few  writers,  I  fancy,  but  have  at  one  time  or  another 
been  surprised  by  the  experience.  For  it  is  often  an 
odd  surprise.  I  myself,  for  example,  am  a  recluse  ;  with 
one  or  two  intimate  friends  whom  I  see  and  one  or 
two  whom  I  don't.  If  in  the  latter  case  you  deny  the 
intimacy  you  fail  to  grasp  that  I  am  a  recluse.  I  saw 
them  ten  years  ago — there's  intimacy.  I  might  see  them 
again  next  week,  or  year — why  then,  there's  more 
intimacy.  And  I  don't  need  to  see  them  at  all — go  to, 
would  you  desire  better  intimacy  ?  The  chapter  of  my 
intimate  friends  is  as  of  the  snakes  in  Ireland.  My  inti- 
mate friends  I  do,  past  question,  encounter  of  odd 
times — if  that  constitute  the  acquaintance,  it  is  the  limit 
of  mine.     But  speculative  assumption,  as  it  is  without 

142 


Inattention 

knowledge,   so    cannot  have  knowledge  of  its  own  in- 
congruity. 

"  Nor  is  the  reciprocal  admiration  of  small  men  neces- 
sarily foolish  :  it  is  foolish  only  when  it  admires  what 
each  wishes  to  be,  not  what  he  is.  For  my  part  I  have 
known  in  true  literary  men  generosity  united  with  un- 
flinching plainness  of  speech.  They  love  literature  too 
much,  that  they  should  bring  into  her  presence  less  than 
severe  truth,  within  the  scope  and  compass  of  their  con- 
ception." 

If  Thompson  had  been  scolded  for  his  Catholic 
friends,  his  Catholic  friends  were  to  be  scolded  for  their 
Thompson,  but  on  a  different  score.  In  the  American 
Ecclesiastical  Review,  for  June  1898,  Canon  Sheehan, 
author  of  The  Triumph  of  Failure,  wrote  : — 

"  For  the  present  he  will  write  no  more  poetry.  Why  ?  I 
should  hardly  like  to  intrude  upon  the  privacy  of  another's 
thoughts  ;  but  Francis  Thompson,  who,  with  all  his  incongruities, 
ranks  in  English  poetry  with  Shelley,  and  only  beneath  Shake- 
speare, has  hardly  had  any  recognition  in  Catholic  circles.  If  Francis 
Thompson  had  been  an  Anglican  or  a  Unitarian,  his  praises  would 
have  been  sung  unto  the  ends  of  the  earth.  He  would  have  been 
the  creator  of  a  new  school  of  poetry.  Disciples  would  have 
knelt  at  his  feet.  But,  being  only  a  Catholic,  he  is  allowed  to 
retire,  and  bury  in  silence  one  of  the  noblest  imaginations  that 
have  ever  been  given  to  Nature's  select  ones — her  poets.  Only 
two  Catholics — literary  Catholics — have  noticed  this  surprising 
genius — Coventry  Patmore  and  Wilfrid  Meynell.  The  vast  bulk 
of  our  co-religionists  have  not  even  heard  his  name,  although  it 
is  already  bruited  amongst  the  Immortals  ;  and  the  great  Catholic 
poet,  for  whose  advent  we  have  been  straining  our  vision,  has 
passed  beneath  our  eyes,  sung  his  immortal  songs,  and  vanished." 

Another  view  of  the  poet's  attitude  towards  his  recep- 
tion comes  from  Mrs.  Blackburn  at  Pantasaph,  1894: — 

"  As  for  Francis,  I  hardly  know  what  to  say.  I  wish  he  would 
show  some  kind  of  human  elation  at  his  unprecedented  success, 
but  he  seems  to  take  it  all  in  a  dull,  mechanical  way,  which  is 

H3 


"  Poems 


?? 


distressing.  It  is  two  months  now  since  there  has  been  any 
change  in  him.  He  stays  away  for  days  together,  and,  although 
he  has  promised  to  come  to  tea  with  me  this  afternoon,  ten  to 
one  I  shan't  see  him.  Bishop  Carroll  was  here  last  week,  and 
saw  Francis  a  good  deal  at  the  Monastery.  He  told  me  he  would 
ask  him  to  come  and  stay  a  short  time  with  him  at  Stalybridge, 
and  take  him  to  see  his  father.  Francis  seems  so  much  to  want 
to  see  his  own  people  again.  It  is  odd  to  read  all  the  well-merited 
praise,  and  then  realise  how  outside  the  pale  of  humanity  this 
great  genius  is,  more  irresponsible  than  any  child,  with  a  child's 
fits  of  temper  and  want  of  foresight  and  control.  He  isn't  doing 
a  stroke  of  work,  and  stays  in  bed  the  best  part  of  the  day,  and 
lately  he  falls  asleep  when  he  comes  to  see  me.  No  one  can  do 
anything  with  him." 

It  was  this  man  who,  nevertheless,  was  as  near  his 
public  as  it  is  possible  for  a  writer  to  be ;  he  made  his 
public.  Nobody  thought  Mr.  H.  D.  Traill  misjudged 
the  chances  of  popularity  when,  on  the  publication  of 
Poems,  he  wrote  to  W.  M. : — 

"  I  quite  agree  with  you  in  thinking  him  a  remarkable  poet, 
but,  if  he  is  ever  to  become  other  than  a  '  poet's  poet '  or 
'  critic's  poet ' — if  indeed  it  is  worth  anyone's  ambition  to  be 
other  than  that — it  will  only  be  by  working  in  a  different 
manner.  A  '  public '  to  appreciate  '  The  Hound  of  Heaven ' 
is  to  me  inconceivable." 

Mr.  William  Archer,  a  splendid  appreciator,  expressed 
much  the  same  view.  Yet  in  the  three  years  after 
Thompson's  death  the  separate  edition  of  "The  Hound 
of  Heaven  "  sold  fifty  thousand  copies  ;  and,  apart  from 
anthologies,  many  more "  thousands  were  sold  of  the 
books  containing  it. 

The  Athenceum  notice  fell  to  Mr.  Arthur  Symons  (3  Feb. 
1894),  moved  to  note  the  worst,  that  "inchoate  poem, 
'  A  Judgment  in  Heaven/  "  and  to  remark  the  closeness 
of  imitation  of  Mr.  Patmore  and  Crashaw — "  Can  a  man 
serve  two  such  masters  ?  " — and  other  influences  sharing 
"the    somewhat   external    quality   of    Mr.    Thompson's 

144 


c 


c 
o 

m 
D. 

E 
o 

-C 

h 


u 

C 


u 


"  Sister  Songs  " 

inspiration."  Mr.  Symons  was  equally  careful  to  estab- 
lish, coldly  enough,  his  appreciation  of  such  importance 
as  might  be  safely  allowed  the  new  poet.  No  doubt  that 
review,  though  W.  M.  labelled  it  favourable,  made  the 
generosity  of  Mr.  Le  Gallienne  and  the  splendid 
appreciation  of  Mr.  Garvin  doubly  valuable  to  send 
to  Pantasaph. 

F.  T.  to  W.  M.  :— 

"  I  think  Traill's  article  excellent  and  kind.  But  the 
Athenceum ! —  Call  you  this  dealing  favourably  with 
a  man  ?  Heaven  save  me,  then,  from  the  unfavourable 
dealers!  Of  course,  he  is  right  about  the  "To 
Monica  Thought  Dying " ;  but  that  and  one  or  two 
other  poems  are  not  sufficient  on  which  to  base  a  charge 
of  making  Mr.  Patmore  a  model.  It  would  have  been 
well,  indeed,  for  the  restraint  and  sanity  of  the  poems 
if  I  had  submitted  somewhat  to  the  influence  of  Mr. 
Patmore's  example.  As  for  what  Watson  says,  it  is  not, 
like  Symons',  unfair.  The  sale  of  the  book  is  indeed 
astonishing.  Let  us  hope  that  the  league  of  the  weeklies 
will  not  materially  damp  it." 

When,  with  Sister  Songs  in  1895,  came  a  second 
batch  of  reviews,  F.  T.  wrote  : — 

"  I  should  much  like  to  see  further  notices  of  my 
book,  if  you  would  not  find  it  too  much  trouble.  Lane 
has  sent  me  only  Le  Gallienne's  in  the  Star.1  From 
another  source  I  have  had  the  Daily  Chronicle,  St.  James's 
and  Manchester  Guardian.     Lane  speaks   of  reviews  in 

1  Of  Sister  Songs  Mr.  Le  Gallienne  wrote: — 

"  Critics  are  continually  asking  a  writer  to  be  someone  else  than  himself,  but 
happily  Mr.  Thompson  seems  to  be  one  of  those  poets  who  go  their  own  way, 
oblivious  of  the  cackle  of  Grub  Street.  .  .  .  Passion,  in  its  ideal  sense,  has 
seldom  found  such  an  ecstatic,  such  a  magnificently  prodigal  expression. 
For  the  love  that  Mr.  Thompson  sings  is  that  love  which  never  finds,  nor 
can  hope  to  find,  '  its  earthly  close.'  It  is  the  poet's  love  of  love  in  the 
abstract,  revealed  to  him  symbolically  in  the  tender  youth  of  two  little  girls, 
and  taking  the  form  of  a  splendid  fantastic  gallantry  of  the  spirit." 

145  * 


"  Poems 


» 


the  Realm,  Saturday,  and  Athenceum.  If  the  two  latter 
are  by  Symons,  as  he  says,  I  do  not  want  to  see  them. 
He  is  the  only  critic  of  mine  that  I  think  downright 
unfair.  .  .  .  Coventry  has  sent  me  a  poem  of  Mrs. 
Meynell's  from  the  P.  M.  G.—1  Why  Wilt  Thou  Chide  ?  ' 
No  woman  ever  wrote  a  thing  like  that :  and  but  one 
man — Coventry  himself." 

From  Patmore's  article  on  Poems  in  the  Fortnightly 
Review,  July  1894,  which  stands  as  the  most  important 
page  in  the  history  of  the  new  poet's  reception: — 

"  Mr.  Francis  Thompson  is  a  writer  whom  it  is  impossible  that 
any  qualified  judge  should  deny  to  be  a  '  new  poet/  one  altogether 
distinct  in  character  from  that  of  the  several  high-class  mediocrities 
who,  during  the  past  twenty  years  or  so,  have  blazed  into  immense 
circulation,  and  have  deceived  for  a  while  many  who  have  seemed 
to  be  of  the  elect  among  critics.  And,  unlike  most  poets  of  his 
quality,  who  have  usually  had  to  wait  a  quarter  of  a  century  or 
more  for  adequate  recognition,  this  poet  is  pretty  sure  of  a  wide 
and  immediate  acknowledgment.  A  singular  and  very  interesting 
history  will  convince  thousands  whom  the  rumour  of  it  may  reach, 
that  he  is  an  '  extraordinary  person '  ;  the  heroic  faith  in  and 
devotion  to  the  interests  of  his  genius  which,  through  long  years, 
has  been  shown  by  at  least  two  friends,  one  of  them  a  lady  not 
inferior  in  genius  to  his  own  ;  his  recognition  of  her  helpfulness 
by  a  series  of  poems  which  St.  John  of  the  Cross  might  have  ad- 
dressed to  St.  Theresa,  and  which,  had  she  not  established  by  her 
own  writings  a  firm  and  original  hold  on  fame,  would  have  carried 
her  name  to  posterity  in  company  with  that  of '  Mrs.  Ann  Killigrew  ' ; 
the  very  defects  of  his  writing,  which  will  render  manifest,  by  con- 
trast, its  beauties,  thereby  ingratiating  '  the  crowd,  incapable  of 
perfectness '  ;  his  abundant  and  often  unnecessary  obscurities, 
which  will  help  his  popularity,  as  Browning's  did  his,  by  minister- 
ing to  the  vanity  of  such  as  profess  to  be  able  to  see  through  mill- 
stones, are  all  circumstances  which  will  probably  do  more  for  his 
immediate  acceptance  by  the  literary  public  than  qualities  which 
ought  to  place  him,  even  should  he  do  no  more  than  he  has  done, 
in  the  permanent  ranks  of  fame,  with  Cowley  and  with  Crashaw. 

"  Considering  that  these  eighty-one  pages  of  verse  are  all  that 
Mr.  Thompson  has  done,  there  would  seem  room  for  almost  any 

146 


Taste 

hope  of  what  he  may  do,  but  for  one  circumstance  which  seems  to 
limit  expectancy.  He  is,  I  believe,  about  thirty-five  years  old — 
an  age  at  which  most  poets  have  written  as  well  as  they  have  ever 
written,  and  at  which  the  faculty  of  '  taste,'  which  is  to  a  poet 
what  chastity  is  to  a  woman,  is  usually  as  perfect  as  it  is  likely  ever 
to  be.  It  was  Cowley's  incorrigible  defect  of  taste,  rather  than 
any  fault  of  the  time,  that  was  responsible  for  the  cold  conglomerate 
of  grit  which  constitutes  the  mass  of  his  writing,  though  he  was 
occasionally  capable  of  ardent  flights  of  pure  and  fluent  verse ; 
and  it  is  by  the  same  shortcoming  in  Crashaw  that  we  are  con- 
tinually reminded  that  what  he  would  have  us  accept  for  concrete 
poetic  passion  is  mainly  an  intellectual  ardour.  The  phraseology 
of  a  perfectly  poetic  ardour  is  always  '  simple,  sensuous,  and 
passionate,'  and  has  a  seemingly  unconscious  finish  from  within, 
which  no  '  polish '  can  produce.  Mr.  Thompson,  as  some  critic 
has  remarked,  is  a  '  greater  Crashaw.'  He  has  never,  in  the  present 
book  of  verses,  done  anything  which  approaches,  in  technical 
beauty,  to  Crashaw's  '  Music's  Duel '  ;  but  then  Crashaw  himself 
never  did  anything  else  approaching  it ;  and,  for  the  rest  of  his 
work,  it  has  all  been  equalled,  if  not  excelled,  in  its  peculiar 
beauties,  as  well  as  its  peculiar  defects,  by  this  new  poet.  .  .  . 
Mr.  Thompson's  poetry  is  '  spiritual '  almost  to  a  fault.  He  is 
always,  even  in  love,  upon  mountain  heights  of  perception,  where 
it  is  difficult  for  even  disciplined  mortality  to  breathe  for  long 
together.  The  lady  whom  he  delights  to  honour  he  would  have 
to  be  too  seraphic  even  for  a  seraph.  He  rebukes  her  for  wearing 
diamonds,  as  if  she  would  be  a  true  woman  if  she  did  not  delight 
in  diamonds,  if  she  could  get  them  ;  and  as  if  she  could  be  truly 
seraphic  were  she  not  a  woman.  The  crown  of  stars  of  the  Regina 
Cceli  is  not  more  naturally  gratifying  and  becoming  to  her  who, 
as  St.  Augustine  says,  had  no  sin, '  except,  perhaps,  a  little  vanity,' 
than  the  tiara  of  brilliants  is  to  the  Regina  Mundi.  Mr.  Thompson 
is  a  Titan  among  recent  poets ;  but  he  should  not  forget  that  a 
Titan  may  require  and  obtain  renovation  of  his  strength  by  occa- 
sional acquaintance  with  the  earth,  without  which  the  heavens 
themselves  are  weak  and  unstable.  The  tree  Igdrasil,  which  has 
its  head  in  heaven  and  its  roots  in  hell  (the  '  lower  parts  of  the 
earth  '),  is  the  image  of  the  true  man,  and  eminently  so  of  the  poet, 
who  is  eminently  man.  In  proportion  to  the  bright  and  divine 
heights  to  which  it  ascends  must  be  the  obscure  depths  in  which 
the  tree  is  rooted,  and  from  which  it  draws  the  mystic  sap  of  its 
spiritual  life.     Since,  however,  Mr.  Thompson's  spirituality  is  a 

147 


"  Poems 


55 


real  ardour  of  life,  and  not  the  mere  negation  of  life,  which  passes, 
with  most  people,  for  spirituality,  it  seems  somewhat  ungracious 
to  complain  of  its  predominance.  It  is  the  greatest  and  noblest 
of  defects,  and  shines  rather  as  an  eminent  virtue  in  a  time  when 
most  other  Igdrasils  are  hiding  their  heads  in  hell  and  affronting 
heaven  with  their  indecorous  roots." 

In  talk  with  F.  T.  he  said  :  — 

"  I  look  to  you  to  crush  all  this  false  mysticism.  Crush  it ;  you 
can  do  it  if  you  like  ;  you  are  the  man  to  do  it." 

Although  C.  P.  had  seen  the  proofs  he  had  not  met 
F.  T.  before  the  publication  of  Poems  or  his  criticism  of 
it  in  the  Fortnightly.  The  proofs  bear  the  marks  of  a 
critic  intolerant  of  everything  in  which  he  detected 
excess  of  diction  or  imagery.  One  short  poem  he  struck 
clean  out,  with  the  comment  "  It  will  do  harm."  He 
was  the  elder  with  a  system,  the  master  who  knew  u  the 
end  and  aim  of  poetry,"  but  later,  speaking  as  with 
words  fully  weighed,  he  said  in  talk  with  F.  T.,  "  I  am 
not  sure  you  may  not  be  a  greater  poet  than  I  am." 

Sister  Songs,  published  two  years  later,  belongs  to  the 
same  period  of  composition  as  Poems.  In  all  the  poetry 
there  is  personal  revelation,  his  own  experience  being 
the  invisible  wind  that  moves  the  cloudy  pageant  of  his 
verse.  But  in  Sister  Songs  we  see  the  experience  itself ; 
he  alludes  to  his  nights  in  the  streets,  and  can  here  say 
with  Donne  :  "...  my  verse,  the  strict  map  of  my 
misery  .  .  ."  But  not  in  the  first  place  is  it  a  poem  of 
sad  experience,  an  unfit  offering  for  little  girls.  It  is 
what  it  would  be — beautiful,  elaborate,  innocent.  The 
second  part  is  addressed  to  Monica  Meynell ;  the  first  is 
a  dance  of  words  in  honour  of  a  younger  sister — "  For 
homage  unto  Sylvia,  her  sweet,  feat  ways." 

F.  T.  to  W.  M.  :— 

"  I  have  been  wondering  what  criticisms  had  appeared 
on  Mrs.  Meynell.     I  have  seen  none,  except  the  Fort- 

148 


"I  Told  You  So" 

nightly  and  the  Chronicle.  Coventry  all  abroad  about 
her  poetry,  Le  Gallienne  all  abroad  about  her  prose. 
But  the  latter's  notice  of  her  poetry  showed  real  percep- 
tion. Coventry  was  excellent  with  regard  to  the  side  of 
her  prose  which  he  had  seized  ;  but  rather  provoking 
for  seizing  it,  since  he  has  sent  the  Chronicle  off  after 
him  on  what  is  a  false  trail.  The  side  is  there  ;  but  it  is 
not  the  prominent  side,  and  certainly  not  the  side  most 
markedly  characteristic  of  her." 

C.  P.  to  F.  T.  :— 

"  Lymington,  July  29,  1895. 

"  My  dear  Thompson, — I  am  glad  you  think  as  I  do  about 
those  '  wonderful  verses '  (A.  M.'s).  I  have  quoted  your  words 
in  a  letter  I  have  written  to  our  Friend.  They  will  delight  her 
greatly.  .  .  . 

"It  is  good  news  that  you  are  writing  prose.  You  know  how 
perfectly  great  I  think  what  I  have  read  of  your  prose.  After  all, 
the  greatest  things  must  be  said  in  prose.  Music  is  too  weak  to 
follow  the  highest  thought.  I  will  try  and  go  to  Pantasaph  as  soon 
as  I  have  arranged  some  engagements  which  have  come  into  the 
foreground  since  I  wrote  to  you. 

"  I  hear  that  Traill  and  Henley  (who  abused  your  first  Book) 
are  in  raptures  (should  they  not  be  written  ruptures  ?)  with  the 
last! 

"  When  will  the  '  critics  '  understand  the  difference  between  an 
ounce  of  diamond  dust  and  a  diamond  that  weighs  an  ounce  ! 
These  gentlemen  have  written  almost  nothing  about  Rod,  Root, 
and  Flower.  I  suppose  they  can  make  nothing  of  it.  But  Bell 
tells  me  it  sells  fairly. — Yours  ever, 

Coventry  Patmore." 

Thompson  himself  adopted  the  view  that  Sister  Songs 
lacked  a  proper  sequence  of  idea  and  incident,  or 
rather  that,  to  the  unready  reader,  it  apparently  lacked 
such  sequence. 

Mr.  Arnold  Bennett's  "Don't  say  I  didn't  tell  you," 
saved  fortunately  from  the  flimsy  pages  of  Woman, 
July  3,  1895,  reads  proudly  now  : — 

"  I  declare  that  for  three  days  after  this  book  appeared  I  read 

149 


u  Poems  " 

nothing  else.  I  went  about  repeating  snatches  of  it — snatches 
such  as — 

The  innocent  moon,  that  nothing  does  but  shine, 
Moves  all  the  labouring  surges  of  the  world. 

My  belief  is  that  Francis  Thompson  has  a  richer  natural  genius,  a 
finer  poetical  equipment,  than  any  poet  save  Shakespeare.  Show 
me  the  divinest  glories  of  Shelley  and  Keats,  even  of  Tennyson, 
who  wrote  the  'Lotus  Eaters'  and  the  songs  in  cThe  Princess,'  and 
I  think  I  can  match  them  all  out  of  this  one  book,  this  little  book 
that  can  be  bought  at  an  ordinary  bookseller's  shop  for  an  ordinary, 
prosaic  crown.  I  fear  that  in  thus  extolling  Francis  Thompson's 
work,  I  am  grossly  outraging  the  canons  of  criticism.  For  the  man 
is  alive,  he  gets  up  of  a  morning  like  common  mortals,  not  im- 
probably he  eats  bacon  for  breakfast ;  and  every  critic  with  an 
atom  of  discretion  knows  that  a  poet  must  not  be  called  great 
until  he  is  either  dead  or  very  old.  Well,  please  yourself  what 
you  think.     But,  in  time  to  come,  don't  say  I  didn't  tell  you." 

Mr.  Arnold  Bennett  was  to  discover  for  himself  the 
secret  of  large  sales  :  he  did  not  negotiate  them  for 
his  poet,  who  complained  of  "my  ill-starred  volume — 
which  has  sold  only  349  copies  in  twelve  months."  Bad 
enough,  of  course  ;  but  poets  of  distinction  have  since 
then  been  contented,  or  discontented,  with  the  sale  of 
thirty  in  the  same  interval.    New  Poems  did  much  worse. 

F.  T.  to  W.  M.  :— 

"  Many  thanks  for  the  Edinburgh,  which  has  indeed 
pleased  me.  I  did  not  expect  such  an  enthusiastic 
review  of  my  work,  and  particularly  of  my  last  book, 
from  a  periodical  so  conservative  and  slow-moving. 
I  am  very  gratified  by  what  you  say  about  Meredith. 
You  know,  I  think,  that  I  hold  him  the  most  unques- 
tionable genius  among  living  novelists.  I  have  read 
five  of  his  novels  :  Harry  Richmond,  Evan  Harrington, 
Richard  Feverel,  Diana  of  the  Crossways,  One  of  our 
Conquerors.     Nothing  beyond  this." 

*5° 


The  "  Edinburgh  '    Reviewer 

In  another  letter  he  again  mentions  the  Edinburgh 
reviewer  : — 

"  The  writer  shows  not  only  taste,  but  what  is  nowadays 
as  rare,  that  acquaintance  with  the  range  of  English 
poetry,  which  ought  to  be  a  natural  essential  in  the  equip- 
ment of  any  poetical  critic.  Even  where  he  is  mistaken, 
he  is  intelligently  mistaken.  One  remark  goes  curiously 
home — that  on  the  higher  poetic  rank  of  metaphor  as 
compared  to  simile.  It  has  always  been  a  principle  of 
my  own  ;  so  much  so,  that  I  never  use  a  simile  if  I  can 
use  a  metaphor.  The  observation  on  the  burden  of  the 
poem  to  Sylvia  shows  a  metrical  sense  unfortunately 
very  unusual  in  our  day." 


W 


CHAPTER   VIII:    OF   WORDS;    OF    ORIGINS; 

OF   METRE 

The  Morning  Post  reviewer  dwelt  on  his  "incompre- 
hensible sentiments  and  unknown  words,"  and  even 
his  friends  had  before  publication  warned  him  that  his 
meanings  were  lost  in  the  "foam  and  roar  of  his 
phraseology." 

Lionel  Johnson  was  hardly  more  candid  than  some 
others  when  he  said  of  Francis  Thompson  that  he  had 
done  more  to  harm  the  English  language  than  the 
worst  American  newspapers  :  corruptio  optimi  pessima. 
And  Mr.  Gosse  saw  him  as  the  denier  of  the  purity  of 
the  English  language. 

But  he  was  no  very  hardened  coiner  of  words  to  be 
thus  taken  aback  by  objections  : — 

"  By  the  way,  I  see  Blackburn  has  queried  (on  MS.  of 
Sister  Songs)  '  lovesome.'  Is  there  no  such  word  ?  I 
never  made  a  doubt  that  there  was.  It  is  at  any  rate 
according  to  analogy.  If  it  is  an  error,  then  'lovely' 
must  be  substituted  throughout,  which  differs  somewhat 
in  nuance  of  meaning." 

He  meets  Mr.  Archer's  complaint  by  quoting  Cam- 
pion's "  Cold  age  deafs  not  there  our  ears,"  and  Shakes- 
peare's "  Beastly  dumbed  by  him,"  and  Keats'  "  Nighing 
to  that  mournful  place  "  : — 

"  In  all  this  I  am  a  born  rebel,  founding  myself  on 
observed  fact  before  I  start  to  learn  theory  of  theorisers, 
systems  of  system-mongers.     I  doubt  me  but  English 

152 


The  Born  Rebel 

verbs  are,  or  were,  commonly  suggested  and  derived 
from  adjectives  ;  and  had  I  time  and  a  British  Museum 
ticket  would  resolve  the  matter  for  myself.  Anyway  I 
have  coined  nought  to  the  like ;  I  mistrust  not  but 
your  same  'dumbed'  is  all  Archer  has  against  me  in  this 
quarrel,  and  all  he  shall  advance  against  me  whereon 
to  build  such  charge,  nor  shall  he  find  another  like 
verb  in  ought  of  verse  I  have  written,  search  he  like 
a  lantern  of  Diogenes.  The  word  lay  to  my  hand  and 
was  a  right  lusty  and  well-pithed  word,  close  grained 
and  forcible  as  a  cudgel,  wherefore  I  used  it ;  and  surely 
I  would  have  used  a  dozen  such  had  they  served  my 
turn." 

In  another  case  his  defence  is  ready  ;  thus  did  he 
consider  the  weight,  rarity,  and  character  of  a  word  or 
phrase  : — 

"Of  'nervure  ';  I  should  not,  in  a  like  passage,  use  cuticle 
of  the  skin  of  a  flower  or  leaf :  because  it  is  a  streaky 
word — its  two  K  sounds  and  mouse-shrewd  u  make  it  like 
a  wire  tweaked  by  a  plectrum.  The  u  of  nervure  is  not  only 
unaccented,  therefore  unprominent  in  sound,  but  the  soft 
v  and  n  quite  alter  its  effect  from  that  it  has  when  com- 
bined with  k's  and  parchment-tight  t's." 

"  '  In  nescientness,  in  nescientness/  "  complained  A.  T.  Q.  C. 
in  the  Speaker,  June  5  and  May  29,  1897,  "  puts  me  at  once 
into  a  frame  of  mind  unfavourable  to  thorough  enjoyment  of 
what  follows.  .  .  .  Undoubtedly  the  eulogies  of  his  friends  have 
been  at  once  so  precipitate  and  defiant  as  to  lead  us  to  suspect 
that  he  is  being  shielded  from  frank  criticism ;  that  his  are  not 
the  rare  and  most  desirable  friends,  who  love  none  the  less  for 
their  courage  to  detect  faults  and  point  them  out ;  and  that,  by 
consequence,  he  is  not  being  given  a  fair  chance  of  correcting 
his  excesses.  .  .  .  '  Monstrance,'  '  vaultages,'  '  arcane,'  '  sciential,' 
1  coerule,'  '  intern perably,'  '  englut'  (past  participle),  'most  strainedest' 
(double  superlative) — these  and  the  like  are  not  easily  allowed  by 
anyone  possessing  a  sense  of  the  history  of  the  language." 

r53 


Of  Words  ;   Of  Origins  ;   Of  Metre 

u  Monstrance  "  is  not  the  only  word  in  that  list  that 
shows  how  hastily  the  critics  fell  foul  of  him,  and  those 
who  think  that  Shakespeare  bears  some  part  in  "the 
history  of  the  language  "  may  take  "  Most  stillest  "  for  a 
fair  precedent  of  a  double  superlative. 

Mr.  E.  K.  Chambers,  reviewing  Sister  Songs  in  1895, 
wrote  : — 

"  He  showers  out  obsolete  words,  or  at  will  coins  new  ones, 
with  a  profusion  that  at  times  becomes  extravagant  and  grotesque. 
.  .  .  His  freaks  of  speech  rarely  prove  anything  but  ugly  lin- 
guistic monstrosities." 

"The  obsolete  '  riped,'  "  "  the  rare  '  heavened,'  "  "  im- 
pitiable,"  "saddenedly,"  "anticipatedly,"  "  immeditat- 
ably" — with  these  the  critics  were  wroth.  Parodies 
appeared  in  the  Saturday  Review — "  Latinate  Vocabules  " 
— and  in  the  Westminster  Gazette.  While  "monstrance" 
was  found  to  have  the  suspect  ring  of  a  coined  word,  many 
of  the  words  he  did  coin  (according  to  Mr.  Beacock's 
Concordance  they  number  130  odd)  passed  unnoticed. 
They  include  plain-going  utilitarian  feminine  forms  such 
as  auxiliatrix,  consortress ;  plurals  such  as  innocences, 
translucencies ;  adjectives  with  the  prefix  un,  such  as 
undelirious  ;  verbs  with  the  suffix  less,  such  as  rebukeless 
and  delimitless ;  a  number  of  substantives  called  into  use 
as  verbs,  e.g.  mcsnadize,  empillared,  chap  let ;  and  a  less 
comfortable  group  of  adverbs,  such  as  supportlessly, 
predilectedly ,  and  the  unsustainable  tamelessly,  meaning 
untamably.  (Browning's  "abashless"  is  of  the  same 
class.) 

He  did  not,  like  Rossetti,  go  to  the  glossaries ;  but 
"  Nares,"  of  which  he  never  possessed  a  copy,  contains 
his  credentials.  Thus  shard  is  Shakespearian.  Drayton 
hasshawm.  "Soilure"  isin  "Troilus  and  Cressida";  "with 
drunken  spilth  of  wine  "  in  "Timon  of  Athens."  "  Swart," 
" swink,"  " targe,"  "amerce,"  " avouch,"  "assoile"  are  all 
of    common     acceptance;     "  bruit,"    "  eld"     "  empcry," 

154 


The  Latinisms 

" immediacy"  "  oslent,"  " threne"  "incarnadine"  and 
"troublous"  are  all  Shakespearian,  and  more.  "  To 
gloom"  according  to  precedent,  is  a  verb,  and  so  are 
"to  englut"  and  u  to  fantasy "  ;  "  lusty  hed"  is  Drayton's 
and  Spenser's.  "Rondure"  is  common;  "  ramp  ire"  is 
in  Dryden  even  ;  "  to  port"  and  "ported"  and,  of  course, 
" natheless"  are  accepted.  "  Crystalline,"  being  Cowley's 
if  for  no  other  reason,  would  be  ready  to  his  tongue  ; 
"  devirginate"  which  has  the  sound  of  one  of  his  own 
prolongations,  is  Donne's;  " adamantean"  he  would 
probably  have  coined,  if  Milton  had  not  done  so  before 
him.  "Temerarious"  came  to  him  as  naturally  as  to 
Sir  Thomas  Browne.  "  Femineity  "  is  Browning's,  and 
"  devisal"  Patmore's,  in  their  modern  usage.  "  Immures  " 
as  a  substantive  still  annoys  his  readers,  but  only  before 
they  find  it  in  "Troilus  and  Cressida." 

His  Latinisms  were  frequent.  Of  these  the  only  test 
to  the  point  is  Dryden's  :  "  If  too  many  foreign  words 
are  poured  in,  it  looks  as  if  they  were  designed,  not 
to  assist  the  natives,  but  to  conquer  them."  From  a 
mature  opinion  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  a  constant 
favourite,  that  his  "  prose  suffered  neither  from  excess 
of  Latinities  nor  from  insufficiency  in  the  vulgar 
tongue,"  we  learn  that  Thompson  was  careful  to  ob- 
serve the  balance. 

In  answer  to  the  common  rebuke  against  F.  T.,  A.  M. 
in  the  Nation,  November  23,  1907,  says  : — 

"  Obviously  there  are  Latinisms  and  Latinisms !  Those  of 
Gibbon  and  Johnson,  and  of  their  time  generally,  serve  to  hold 
passion  well  at  arm's  length ;  they  are  the  mediate  and  not  the 
immediate  utterance  of  human  feeling.  But  in  F.  T.  the  majestic 
Latin  word  is  forged  hot  on  the  anvil  of  the  artificer.  No  Old 
English  in  the  making  could  be  readier  or  closer." 

His  own  rule  of  writing  was,  "That  it  is  the  infantries 
of  language,  so  to  speak,  which  must  make  up  the  mass 
of  a  poet's  forces;  i.e.  common  diction  of  the  many  in 

155 


Of  Words  ;   Of  Origins  ;   Of  Metre 

every   age;  the   numerous   terms  of  prose,   apart  from 
special  poetic  diction." 

In  an  early  review  Thompson  writes  : — 

"We  have  spoken  somewhat  contemptuously  of  'fine 
language.'  Let  no  one  suppose  from  this  that  we  have 
any  antipathy  to  literary  splendour  in  itself,  apart  from 
the  subject  on  which  it  is  exercised.  Quite  the  contrary. 
To  write  plainly  on  a  fine  subject  is  to  set  a  jewel  in 
wood.  Did  our  givers  of  literary  advice  only  realise 
this,  we  should  hear  less  of  the  preposterous  maxim 
'  aim  always  at  writing  simply.'  Conceive  merely 
Raleigh,  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  Jeremy  Taylor,  Milton, 
and  de  Quincey  rendered  into  '  simple  English.' 
Their  only  fit  place  would  be  the  fire.  The  true  abuse 
of  'fine  language'  is  rich  diction  applied  to  a  plain 
subject,  or  lofty  words  to  weak  ideas  ;  like  most  devices 
in  writing  this  one  also  is  excellent  when  employed 
as  a  means,  evil  when  sought  as  an  end." 

This  is  in  an  early  essay :  it  is  doubtful  if  later  he 
would  have  so  precisely  matched  fine  writing  and 
good  matter.  In  his  own  work  the  finer  meanings 
are  not  seldom  put  into  the  humbler  words. 

For  his  words  he  had  no  need  to  seek  far  ;  they  were 
more  naturally  remembered  for  use  in  the  poetry  of 
splendid  artifice  than  the  language  of  the  street.  His 
search  was  not  deliberate.  In  the  offices  of  the  Church 
he  found  words  to  his  hand,  but  he  did  not  go  to  the 
offices  on  their  account.  It  is  doubtful  if  he  borrowed 
even  a  monosyllable  from  a  poet  he  did  not  love. 
Very  rarely  he  made  notes  :  "  Pleached — an  invaluable 
word,"  is  the  only  memorandum  I  have  come  across. 
He  had  no  list,  like  Rossetti's,  of  "stunning  words  for 
poetry,"  among  them  "gonfalon,"  "virelay,"  "citole," 
and  "  shent."  He  was  at  no  pains  to  coin  or  collect,  nor 
even  to  possess  a  theory.      Bulwer  Lytton's  wholesale 

156 


Rough  Drafts  of  Creation 

c  ondemnation  of  Latinisms,  and  professed  preference 
for  such  forms  as  scatterling  and  doomsman  for  "vaga- 
bond "  and  "  executioner,"  were  not  the  ways  of  a  liberal 
master  : — 

"  The  labour,  the  art,  the  studious  vocabulary,"  says  the  writer 
in  the  Nation,  November  23,  1907,  "  are  locked  together  within 
the  strenuous  grasp  of  the  man's  sincerity.  There  is  no  dis- 
sociating, no  disintegrating,  such  poems  as  these  ;  and  Francis 
Thompson's  heart  beats  in  the  words  '  rosea!  *  '  cymars,'  '  jrore,1 
'  amiced,'  '  lamped,'  and  so  forth." 

Being  led  on  in  certain  studies  he  became  attached 
to  the  terms  specially  connected  with  those  studies. 
The  process  may  be  traced  in  the  case  of  his  use  of 
the  names  of  extinct  animals.  Their  discovery  he 
calls  pure  romance ;  "  but  the  romance  which  lies  in 
the  new  and  unimagined  forms,  hidden  from  the  poets 
and  tale-tellers  of  all  previous  ages,  and  given  up  to 
eyes  almost  satiate  with  wonders,  has  yet  to  find  its 
writers.  .  .  .  Tennyson  has  seen  its  uses  for  large  and 
impressive  allusion — 

Nature  brings  not  back  the  Mastodon, — 

but  Tennyson  is  almost  alone  even  in  the  use  of  the 
theme.  In  an  occasional  later  and  younger  poet  you 
may  find  mention  of  the  plesiosaure  or  other  typical 
monster."  Again,  still  reviewing  Mr.  Seeley's  Dragons 
of  the  Air,  Thompson  writes  : — 

"  We  have  strayed,  it  seems,  into  the  ancient  forge  and 
workshop  of  Nature,  where  she  is  busy  with  her  first 
experiments.  .  .  .  We  behold,  cast  off  from  her  anvil,  in 
bewildering  succession,  shapes  so  fantastical,  grotesque, 
and  terrible,  as  never  peopled  the  most  lawless  dreams 
of  an  Eastern  haschish-eater ;  apparitions  of  inter- 
twisted types  and  composite  phantasms,  more  and  more 
strange  than  all  the  brute  gods  of  Egypt.  We  are 
among  the  rough  drafts  of  a  creation." 

157 


Of  Words  ;   Of  Origins ;   Of  Metre 

The  "  occasional  later  and  younger  poet"  was  himself. 

Of  his  partial  acceptance  of  the  criticism  of  the  Press 
he  makes  sign  in  a  note  he  had  intended  printing  in 
New  Poems: — 

"  Of  words  I  have  coined  or  revived  I  have  judged 
fit  to  retain  but  few ;  and  not  more  than  two  or  three 
will  be  found  in  this  book.  I  shall  also  be  found,  I 
hope,  to  have  modified  much  the  excessive  loading  both 
of  diction  and  imagery  which  disfigured  my  former  work." 

That  the  note  was  not  printed  must  not  strictly  be 
taken  to  mean  that  he  repented  of  his  repentance.  But 
he  was  not  easily  brought  to  correct  or  discard — the 
initial  process  of  composition  had  been  too  careful  to 
be  lightly  tampered  with.  In  A.  M.  he  had  a  very  stern 
critic  for  such  words  as  "  tameless,"  but  he  was  found 
less  amenable  than  George  Meredith,  who,  accepting 
correction,  altered  two  uses  of  words  so  formed.  This 
letter  was  written  during  the  making  of  Poems: — 

"Palace  Court  House,  Friday. 

"  My  dear  Francis, — The  Bible  has  '  unquenchable/  and  I 
don't  think  it  could  have  '  quenchless.'  Lowell  has  '  exhaustless  ' 
somewhere.  I  think  one  can  strictly  hold  '  less  '  to  equal  '  minus  ' 
or  '  without,'  and  with  these  the  verb  is  impossible.  I  remember 
refusing  to  be  taught  a  setting  of  some  words  of  Praed's  that  had 
'  tameless  '  for  '  untamable,'  so  you  see  it  is  an  old  objection 
with  me. 

"  I  must  confess  that  '  dauntless '  has  taken  a  very  firm  place 
in  the  language. 

"  Never  has  there  been  such  a  dance  of  words  as  in  '  The  Making 
of  Viola.'  All  other  writers  make  their  words  dance  on  the  ground 
with  a  certain  weight,  but  these  go  in  the  blue  sky.  I  have  to 
unsay  everything  I  said  in  criticism  of  that  lovely  poem.  I  think 
the  long  syllables  make  themselves  valued  in  every  case.  But  I 
do  not  like  three  syllables  in  the  course  of  the  poem — the  three 
that  give  the  iambic  movement.  I  have  not  made  up  my  mind 
as  to  the  alternative  endings.  They  are  all  so  beautiful. — Ever 
most  sincerely  yours,  Alice  Meynell. 

158 


» 


The  Habit  of  Words 

The  suggestions  as  to  metrical  modifications  he 
accepted.  I  print  here  a  letter  of  which,  however,  the 
interest  for  me  is  not  etymological  :  its  interest  is  that 
he  troubled  to  write  at  all  to  an  inattentive  Yahoo  of  a 
friend  : — 

"  Dear  Ev.,  as  to  the  note  you  asked  the  Latin  simplex 
is  from  plecto  (or  rather  its  root)  '  I  entwine,'  and 
some  root  allied  to  the  Greek  'together.'  The  root- 
meaning  is  therefore  'twined  together,'  and  it  primarily 
means  that  which  has  synthesis  or  unity  as  opposed  to 
that  which  is  confused  or  perplexed  by  lack  of  oneness. 
When  Wordsworth  (is  it  not  ?)  somewhere  speaks  of  a 
being  '  simple  and  unperplexed,'  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, he  uses  the  word  mainly  in  this  original 
sense,  though  few  even  thoughtful  folk  explicitly  so 
grasp  it.  It  is  degenerated  in  the  common  mouth  to  the 
meaning  almost  of  '  elementary.'  Milton,  saying  poetry 
should  be  simple,  sensuous,  and  passionate  (is  that  the 
third  word  ?),  by  simple  means  synthetic — opposed  to 
prose  (especially,  doubtless,  he  had  in  mind  philosophic 
prose),  which  is  analytic. — Yours,  F.  T." 

He  never  dropped  the  habit  of  words.  One  of  the  last 
letters  he  wrote,  dated  from  Rascals'  Corner,  South  water, 
September  14,  1907,  was  written  when  he  had  detected 
a  random  paragraph  of  A.  M.'s  in  the  Daily  Chronicle : — 

"  Dear  Mrs.  Meynell, — You  might  have  added  to 
the  willow  par.  the  Latin  salex  and  the  Eng.  sallow: 

Among  the  river  sallows  borne  aloft 

Or  sinking,  as  the  light  wind  lives  or  dies  ! 

The  English,  I  should  guess,  may  be  from  one  of  the 
Romance  tongues  ;  if  so  all  these  modern  forms  are, 
mediately  or  immediately,  from  the  Latin.  But  it  is 
interesting  to  find  the  Latin  and  the  Irish  really  identical 
(if  you  neglect  the  inflectional  endings  in  the  former) — 
salic  and  salagh.     'Tis  but  the  difference  'twixt  a  plain 

*59 


Of  Words ;   Of  Origins  ;   Of  Metre 

and  a  guttural  hard  consonant — for  connective  vowels 
are  unstable  endlessly.  As  for  k  and  g,  you  see,  e.g., 
reg-o  evolve  rec-tum. 

"  Excuse  this  offhand  note,  but  your  paragraph  in- 
terested me. 

"  With  warm  love  to  yourself,  Wilfrid,  and  all  the 
quondam  kids  who  are  fast  engaging  themselves  off  the 
face  of  my  earth. — Yours  ever,  dear  Mrs.  Meynell, 

Francis  Thompson." 

He  watched  with  much  interest  his  words  creep  into 
currency.  Roseal — "most  beloved  of  my  revivals" — 
which  he  had  known  only  in  Lodge's  Glaucus  and  Scylla, 
he  saw  reappear  in  Dowson  and  other  writers,  and  realised 
it  was  probably  from  Thompson  and  not  from  Lodge  that 
it  had  been  learnt.  In  this  he  saw  the  sign — the  only 
one,  he  said — of  his  influence.  He  could  hardly  have 
expected  that  two  years  after  his  death  "  labyrinthine  " 
would  be  a  word  used  not  only  in  poetry  books,  but  on 
political  platforms — by  Mr.  George  Wyndham  and  his 
less-versed  opponents.  Words  that  ten  years  earlier 
irked  the  reader  in  poetry  became,  with  a  change  of 
mood,  acceptable  in  public  speaking,  so  that  Mr. 
Asquith's  use  of  "fuliginous"  irked  nobody. 

The  objection  to  a  poet's  range  of  phrase  finds  no 

support    in    the    dictionaries,    whose    abundance    is    a 

reproach  to  the  restricted  scope  of  the  modern  tongue. 

Johnson  is  three  parts  made  up  of  terms  neglected  or 

discarded,  for  the  reason,  chiefly,  that  we  are  lazy  and 

unlearned.     The  coster-monger  whose  speech  comprises 

fewer  words  each  year,  thinks  the  parson  a  fop  for  the 

extent  of  his  vocabulary,  and  the  parson  in  his  turn  is 

impatient  with  his  poets.     The  curtailment  of  our  speech 

goes  on  apace,  and  if  we  love  the  poet — the  Wordsworth 

of  "Daffodils"  or  the  Thompson  of  "Daisy" — as  a  man 

of  few  words,  we  should  admire  him  for  being  at  times 

a  man  of  many. 

******* 

1 60 


At  Rossetti's  Death 

By  1889  Rossetti  had  become  an  absorbing  interest, 
but  Coleridge,  in  what  F.  T.  calls  his  Pre-Rossettian  days, 
"  had  been  my  favourite  poet."    Before  Coleridge,  Shelley. 

An  early  poem  not  elsewhere  printed,  written  on  the 
anniversary  of  Rossetti's  death,  illustrates  the  closeness 
of  his  affection — 

This  was  the  day  that  great,  sad  heart, 
That  great,  sad  heart  did  beat  no  more, 

Which  nursed  so  long  its  Southern  flame 
Amid  our  vapours  dull  and  frore. 

Through  voice  of  art  and  voice  of  song 

He  uttered  one  same  truth  abroad, — 
Through  voice  of  art  and  voice  of  song — 

That  Love  below  a  pilgrim  trod  : 
He  said,  through  women's  eyes,  "  How  long  ! 

Love's  other  half's  with  God  !  " 

•  ••••• 

He  taught  our  English  art  to  gaze 

On  Nature  with  a  learner's  eyes  : 
That  hills  which  look  into  the  heaven 

Have  their  fair  bases  on  the  earth  ; 
God  paints  His  most  angelic  hues 

On  vapours  of  a  terrene  birth. 

May  God  his  locks  with  glories  twine, 

Be  kind  to  all  he  wrought  amiss  ! 
May  God  his  locks  with  glories  twine, 

And  give  him  back  his  Beatrice. 
This  day  the  sad  heart  ceased  to  pine, 

I  trust  his  lady's  beats  at  his, 
And  two  beat  in  a  single  bliss. 


*&* 


Of  all  Thompson's  lines  the  second    of   the   sunset- 
image — 

Day's  dying  dragon  lies  drooping  his  crest, 
Panting  red  pants  into  the  West, 

has  been  found  the  most  ludicrous.     No  critic  hesitated 
in    condemning    it,   and  your  reader  most  often  splits 

161  L 


Of  Words  ;   Of  Origins  ;   Of  Metre 

the  line  with  a  laugh,  thinking  the  while  of  Hope 
Brothers.  But  the  poet  thought  upon  his  own  thought 
and  upheld  his  line  in  face  of  the  query  marks  con- 
fidently balanced  on  the  margin  of  his  proofs  ;  he  re- 
membered Coleridge's — 


*&v 


As  if  this  earth  in  fast,  thick  pants  were  breathing. 

"Red"  or  "  thick,"  there  is  little  for  the  parodist  to  choose 
between  them.  Much  closer  borrowing  from  Coleridge, 
in  which  he  pronounces  the  words  and  rhymes  of  his 
master  but  keeps  his  voice  ringing  high  with  personality, 
is  found  at  the  close  of  "To  my  Godchild."  It  is  easy 
to  know  with  what  keen  recognition  he  must  have  read 
Coleridge's  "  Ne  Plus  Ultra."  He  borrowed  its  weakest 
lines  because  he  dared  not  borrow  the  strongest ;  they 
would  not  have  become  more  famous  on  his  hands. 
Coleridge's  poem  ends  : — 

Reveal'd  to  none  of  all  the  Angelic  State, 

Save  to  the  Lampads  Seven 1 

That  watched  the  Throne  of  Heaven  ! 

Thompson's  ending  is 

Pass  the  crystalline  sea,  the  Lampads  seven  : — 
Look  for  me  in  the  nurseries  of  Heaven. 

We  have  seen  an  ending  ;  here  is  a  borrowed  open- 
ing :— 

Like  a  lone  Arab,  old  and  blind, 

Some  caravan  had  left  behind, 

Who  sits  beside  a  ruin'd  well, 

Where  the  shy  sand-asps  bask  and  swell ; 

And  now  he  hangs  his  aged  head  aslant 

And  listens  for  a  human  sound — in  vain,  &c. 

It  develops  into  an  allegory  of  illusion  :  the  poet  sits 

1  Revelation  iv,    5,   " .   .  .   there  were  seven   lamps  burning   before   the 
Throne,  which  are  the  seven  spirits  of  God." 

162 


The  Coleridge  Influence 

desolate,   and,   thinking   Love    visits   him,    is   deceived. 
Just  thus  is  Thompson's  passage  beginning — 

As  an  Arab  journey eth 

Through  a  sand  of  Ayaman, 

Lean  Thirst,  lolling  its  cracked  tongue,  &c.  .  .  . 

The  staging,  the  characters,  are  the  same.  Perhaps 
curiosity  in  opium-eating  led  him  early  and  im- 
pressionably  to  the  study  of  Coleridge.  "The  Pains 
of  Sleep "  brings  their  experiences  cheek  to  cheek — 
haggard  cheek  to  haggard  cheek.  Thompson  wrote 
a  prose  tale  embodying  the  same  terror  of  dreams 
and  dream-existence.  Both  used  humorous  verse  and 
conversation  for  a  means  of  escape.  They  laughed  to 
forget,  and  punned,  not  so  much  to  laugh,  as  to  be 
distracted  in  the  exercise.  One  of  them  did  the  talk- 
ing much  better  than  the  other ;  but  their  tongues 
moved  to  the  same  command,  their  voices  ran  on  from 
the  same  fear.  Even  "  Love  dies,  Love  dies,  Love 
dies — Ah  !  Love  is  dead  "  is  the  reflection  of  a  page  of 
Coleridge's  commonplaces. 

These  are  casual  likenesses,  found  on  the  penetrable 
levels  of  resemblance,  comparable  to  the  coincidence  of 
the  after-collegiate  enlisting  of  the  two  men,  the  Bowles 
connexion,  or  the  Strand  experience.  But  Francis 
Thompson,  as  it  happens,  has  been  explicit  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  unreachable  quality  of  Coleridge  : — 

"  No  other  poet,  perhaps,  except  Spenser  has  been  an 
initial  influence,  a  generative  influence,  on  so  many 
poets.  Having  with  that  mild  Elizabethan  much  affinity, 
it  is  natural  that  he  should  be  a  'poets'  poet'  in  the  rarer 
sense — the  sense  of  fecundating  other  poets.  As  with 
Spenser,  it  is  not  that  other  poets  have  made  him  their 
model,  have  reproduced  essentials  of  his  style  (accidents 
no  great  poet  will  consciously  perpetuate).  The  pro- 
geny are  sufficiently  unlike  the  parent.     It  is  that  he  has 

163 


Of  Words ;   Of  Origins ;   Of  Metre 

incited  the  very  sprouting  in  them  of  the  laurel-bough, 
has  been  to  them  a  fostering  sun  of  song.  Such  a 
primary  influence  he  was  to  Rossetti — Rossetti,  whose 
model  was  far  more  Keats  than  Coleridge.  Such  he 
was  to  Coventry  Patmore,  in  whose  work  one  might 
trace  many  masters  rather  than  Coleridge."  ("  Such 
he  was  to  me,"  F.  T.,  a  reviewer  in  a  public  print, 
refrained  from  adding.)  " '  1  did  not  try  to  imitate  his 
style,'  said  that  great  singer.  '  I  can  hardly  explain  how 
he  influenced  me :  he  was  rather  an  ideal  of  perfect 
style  than  a  model  to  imitate  ;  but  in  some  indescrib- 
able way  he  did  influence  my  development  more  than 
any  other  poet.'  No  poet,  indeed,  has  been  senseless 
enough  to  imitate  the  inimitable.  One  might  as  well 
try  to  paint  air  as  to  catch  a  style  so  void  of  all  manner 
that  it  is  visible,  like  air,  only  in  its  results.  .  .  .  Imita- 
tion has  no  foothold  ;  it  would  tread  on  glass."  * 

F.  T.  noted  in  the  Academy,  November  20,  1897,  the 
direct  coincidence  of  Browning's 

Its  sad  in  sweet,  its  sweet  in  sad, 
and  Crashaw's 

Sweetness  so  sad,  sadness  so  sweet. 

It  did  not  come  within  his  scope  as  a  reviewer  to 
mention  the  doubly  direct  coincidence  (or  something 
nearer)  of  his  own  : 

At  all  the  sadness  in  the  sweet, 
The  sweetness  in  the  sad. 

Coleridge  and  the  other  poets  to  whom  Coleridge  had 
guided  him ;  Shelley  and,  in  prose,  de  Quincey,  are 
prominent  in  his  early  reading.  To  go  to  de  Quincey's 
"  Daughter  of  Lebanon  "  for  the  pedigree  of  "  The  Hound 

1  F.  T.  in  the  Academy,  February  6,  1897. 
164 


Various    Authors 

of  Heaven  "  is  like  going  to  the  grocer's  for  the  seeds,  in 
coloured  packets,  of  the  passion  flower.  But  the  Vic- 
torian tassels  of  the  earlier  piece  do  not  hide  its  lessons — 
"to  suffer  that  God  should  give  by  seeming  to  refuse" 
— and  pursuit  is  the  theme  common  to  both,  and  common 
to  writers  of  most  ages.  De  Quincey  did  no  more  than 
hand  it  on.  From  St.  Augustine's  "Thou  wast  driving 
me  on  with  Thy  good,  so  that  I  could  not  be  at  rest 
until  Thou  wast  manifest  to  the  eye  of  my  soul  "  ;  to 
Meister  Eckhart's  "  He  who  will  escape  Him  only  runs 
to  His  bosom  ;  for  all  corners  are  open  to  him,"  and  so 
on,  the  idea  is  the  same,  though  less  elaborated  and 
dramatic  than  in  "  The  Hound." 

In  the  "Mistress  of  Vision"  the  scenery  and  the  lady 
are  Shelleyan  ;  one  marvels  that  Thompson's  teaching 
comes  from  those  illusive  lips.  Thus  would  it  have  been 
written  had  such  thoughts  gained  desired  expression 
through  Shelley.  The  thoughts  are  Francis  Thompson's  ; 
the  mode  the  other's.  Mr.  Beacock  refers  one  to  passages 
of  the  "  Witch  of  Atlas,"  but  the  likeness  is  too  elusively 
general  to  be  caught  in  particular  verses,  and  such  things 
as  the  borrowing  of  "  blosmy  "  are  nothing  more  than 
clues,  like  the  fragmentary  debris  of  a  paper-chase,  to  the 
whereabouts  of  an  influence. 

An  early  book  of  transcription  contains  a  deal  of 
Donne  and  Stevenson  (including  Father  Damien  and 
poems),  a  touch  of  Andrew  Lang,  more  of  Blunt,  a  little 
Meredith  ;  much  Rossetti  and  Cowley,  some  Suckling, 
the  inevitable  Browne,  and  a  Theodore  Watts.  Drayton, 
too,  is  met  in  the  Thompsonian  verses :  "  Hear,  my 
Muses,  I  demand,"  &c,  so  that  when  Mr.  Chesterton 
says  that  the  shortest  way  of  describing  the  Victorian 
age  is  to  say  that  Francis  Thompson  stood  outside 
it,  he  might  have  gone  on,  with  a  little  access  of 
wilfulness,  to  say  that  the  seventeenth  century  was  best 
described  by  saying  that  in  it  was  Francis  Thompson. 

Marvell  he  had  not  read  till  after  his  first  books — "Just 

165 


Of  Words  ;   Of  Origins  ;   Of  Metre 

Crashaw  and  a  little  Cowley — and  I  had  formed  my  style 
before  I  knew  Cowley,  whom  I  really  did  curiously 
resemble  ;  though  none  perceived  it,  because  none  had 
read  Cowley." 

The  Crashaw  descent  may  be  traced  by  way  of  Cole- 
ridge, who  said  of  certain  lines  of  the  "  Hymn  to  St. 
Teresa  "  that  "  They  were  ever  present  in  my  mind  whilst 
writing  the  second  part  of  'Christabel ' ;  if,  indeed,  by 
some  process  of  the  mind,  they  did  not  suggest  the  first 
thought  of  the  whole  poem."  Crashaw's  Romanism  did 
not  interfere  with  Coleridge's  pleasure,  though  in  reading 
Herbert,  whom  he  found  "delicious,"  and  at  a  time  when 
he  could  note  "  that  he  was  comparatively  but  little 
known,"  he  paused  over  inquiries  as  to  the  exactness  of 
that  author's  conformity  to  Protestantism.  Coleridge 
was  much  taken  with  Herbert's  "The  Flower,"  a  poem 
"especially  affecting" — and  naturally,  to  a  poet.  It  is 
easy  to  suppose  that  Francis  gave  it  particular  attention 
on  S.  T.  C.'s  recommendation,  and  that  he  had  in  his 
mind  the  lines 

I  once  more  smell  the  dew  and  rain 
And  relish  versing 

when,  conscious  of  the  wings  "Of  coming  songs  that 
lift  my  hair  and  stir  it,"  he  praises  the 

Giver  of  spring,  and  song,  and  every  young  new  thing  1 

Herbert,  welcoming  a  return  of  grace  in  his  heart, 
writes  : — 

How  fresh,  0  Lord,  how  sweet  and  clean 

Are  Thy  returns  !  ev'n  as  the  flowers  in  spring. 

Thompson,  in  "  From  the  Night  of  Forebeing," 
writes  : — 

From  sky  to  sod, 

The  world's  unfolded  blossom  smells  of  God. 
166 


Crashaw  and  a  little  Cowley 

Closer  still  is  the  resemblance,  noted  by  Mr.  Beacock, 
between  Herbert's 

Only  thy  grace,  which  with  these  elements  comes, 

Knoweth  the  ready  way, 

And  hath  the  privie  key 
Op'ning  the  soul's  most  subtile  rooms  ; 

While  those  to  spirits  refin'd,  at  doore  attend 

Despatches  from  their  friend, 

and  Thompson's 

Its  keys  are  at  the  cincture  hung  of  God. 

Mr.  Beacock  has  also  pointed  out  the  resemblance 
between  Southwell's 

Did  Christ  manure  thy  heart  to  breed  him  briers  ? 
Or  doth  it  need  this  unaccustom'd  soyle 
With  hellish  dung  to  fertile  heaven's  desires  ? 

and  Thompson's 

Whether  man's  heart  or  life  it  be  which  yields 
Thee  harvest,  must  Thy  harvest-fields 
Be  dunged  with  rotten  death  ? 

Remembering  his  own  acknowledgment — "just 
Crashaw  and  a  little  Cowley" — one  may  turn  to  Mr. 
Garvin's  equally  accurate  summing  up  in  the  Bookman, 
March  1897  : — 

"He  is  an  argonaut  of  literature,  far  travelled  in  the  realm 
of  gold,  and  he  has  in  a  strange  degree  the  assimilative  mind  that 
takes  suggestions  as  a  cat  takes  milk.  .  .  .  '  The  Daisy '  was 
strangely  Wordsworthian.  But  '  Dream-Tryst '  was  like  Shelley, 
and  had  that  strange  ethereal  poignancy.  There  was  the  '  Dead 
Cardinal  of  Westminster,'  with  its  stanzas  of  shuddering  beauty 
upon  the  prescience  of  death.  There  was  the  resplendent  '  Judg- 
ment in  Heaven,'  with  the  trenchant  Elizabethan  apothegm 
of  its  epilogue.  The  '  Corymbus  for  Autumn '  was  an  overwhelm- 
ing improvisation  of  wild  and  exorbitant  fantasy.  To  be  familiar 
with  it  is  to  repent  of  having  ever  reproached  it  for  a  splendid 

167 


Of  Words  ;   Of  Origins  ;   Of  Metre 

pedantry  and  a  monstrous  ambition.  On  the  whole,  if  Mr.  Thomp- 
son had  stopped  at  his  first  volume  we  should  have  judged  him 
more  akin  in  stature  and  temperament  to  Marlowe  than  to  any 
other  great  figure  in  English  poetry.  It  seemed  to  reveal  the  same 
1  high  astounding  terms/  the  same  vast  imagery ;  the  same  amour 
de  V impossible  ;  the  soul  striking  the  sublime  stars,  the  intolerable 
passion  for  beauty.  But  Mr.  Thompson  did  not  stop  there.  After 
the  publication  of  his  second  volume,  when  it  became  clear  that  the 
'  Hound  of  Heaven '  and  '  Sister  Songs  '  should  be  read  together 
as  a  strict  lyrical  sequence,  there  was  no  longer  any  comparison 
possible  except  the  highest,  the  inevitable  comparison  with  even 
Shakespeare's  Sonnets.  The  Sonnets  are  the  greatest  soliloquy 
in  literature.  The  '  Hound  of  Heaven  '  and  '  Sister  Songs '  to- 
gether are  the  second  greatest ;  and  there  is  no  third.  In  each 
case  it  is  rather  consciousness  imaged  in  the  magic  mirror  of  poetry 
than  explicit  autobiography.  As  to  Mr.  Francis  Thompson,  what 
strange  indentures  bound  him  to  the  Muse  we  cannot  tell.  We 
are  permitted  to  guess  some  strict  and  sad  apprenticeship  paid 
with  bitter  bread  and  unimaginable  dreams,  some  ultimate  deliver- 
ance of  song.  It  is  only  possible  to  realise  all  the  beauty  of  Mr. 
Thompson's  work  when  it  is  read  as  a  lyrical  sequence  related 
to  Shakespeare's  Sonnets  on  the  side  of  poetry,  and  to  de  Quincey's 
Opium  Eater  on  the  side  of  prose." 

To  a  certain  extent  Thompson  states  his  own  case  in 
treating  of  Mangan's  liberties  with  his  Irish  originals  : — 

"  They  are  outrageous,  or  would  be  outrageous  were 
the  success  not  so  complete.  But  poetry  is  a  rootedly 
immoral  art,  in  which  success  excuses  well-nigh  every- 
thing. That  in  the  soldier  is  flat  blasphemy  which  in 
the  captain,  the  master  of  his  craft,  is  but  commendable 
daring.  Exactly  as  a  great  poet  may  plagiarise  to  his 
heart's  content,  because  he  plagiarises  well,  so  the  truly 
poetical  translator  may  reindite  a  foreign  poem  and  call 
it  a  translation." 

And  in  reviewing  Henley's  Burns  he  writes,  again 
with  the  braggart  touch  of  one  who  may  have  gone 
the  same  rascally  road  : — 

"  Spartan  law  holds  good  in  literature,  where  to  steal 

168 


To   Steal   is   Honourable 

is  honourable,  provided  it  be  done  with  skill  and 
dexterity  :  wherefore  Mercury  was  the  patron  both  of 
thieves  and  poets." 

Touching  a  more  serious  aspect  of  the  case,  he  writes 
with  Patmore  in  his  mind  : — 

"  There  are  some  truths  so  true,  that  upon  everyone 
who  sees  them  clearly  they  force  almost  the  same  mode 
of  expression  ;  they  create  their  own  formulas." 

It  might  not  have  been  guessed  that  the  author  of 
"  Horatius "  had  the  means  wherewith  to  lend  to  the 
wealthy;  but  Macaulay's  lines  "On  the  Battle  of 
Naseby  " — 

Oh  !  wherefore  come  ye  forth,  in  triumph  from  the  North, 
With  your  hands,  and  your  feet,  and  your  raiment  all  red  ? 

And  wherefore  doth  your  rout  send  forth  a  joyous  shout  ? 
And  whence  be  the  grapes  of  the  wine-press  which  ye  tread  ? 

Oh  !  evil  was  the  root,  and  bitter  was  the  fruit, 
And  crimson  was  the  juice  of  the  vintage  that  we  trod  ; 

For  we  trampled  on  the  throng  of  the  haughty  and  the  strong, 
Who  sate  in  the  high  places,  and  slew  the  saints  of  God  ! — 

supply  the  model  for  the  ecclesiastical  ballad  "The 
Veteran  of  Heaven"  which  begins  — 


'&>' 


O  Captain  of  the  wars,  whence  won  Ye  so  great  scars  ? 

In  what  fight  did  Ye  smite,  and  what  manner  was  the  foe  ? 
Was  it  on  a  day  of  rout  they  compassed  Thee  about, 

Or  gat  Ye  these  adornings  when  Ye  wrought  their  overthrow  ? 

"  I  am  disposed  to  put  in  a  good  word  for  Macaulay's 
ballads,"  F.  T.  has  said. 

A  fair  thought,  a  keen  observation,  a  neat  phrase 
are  seldom  strictly  preserved.  If  accident  does  not 
take  two  or  more  writers  to  the  same  hill,  show  them 
the  same  sunset,  and  charge  their  minds  with  the 
same  words,  plagiarism  will   serve  the  purpose.     Even 

169 


Of  Words  ;   Of  Origins  ;   Of  Metre 

if  Cowley's  rare  wit  had  remained  in  manuscript  unseen, 
its  turns  would  not  have  been  for  many  centuries 
entirely  his  own.  Literature  will  out.  To  one  or  the 
other,  to  plagiarism  or  accident,  is  due  a  likeness  between 
Thompson's 

So  fearfully  the  sun  doth  sound, 
Clanging  up  beyond  Cathay  ; 
For  the  great  earthquaking  sunrise  rolling  up  beyond  Cathay, 

and  Mr.  Kipling's  "And  the  sun  came  up  like  thunder 
out  of  China,  'cross  the  Bay." 

A  wind  got  up  frae  off  the  sea. 
It  blew  the  stars  as  clear  could  be. 
It  blew  in  the  een  of  a'  the  three, 

And  the  mune  was  shining  clearly  ! 

sang  Stevenson's  Highlander  years  before  Thompson 
wrote 

And  a  great  wind  blew  all  the  stars  to  flare. 

But  in  neither  case  is  Thompson,  though  the  dates  are 
against  him,  proved  a  thief. 

Of  a  review  of  his  Poems  in  the  St.  James  s  Gazette : — 

"  I  only  deprecate  in  it  the  implied  comparison  to 
Dante,  and  the  to-me-bewildering  comparison  to 
Matthew  Arnold.  'Tis  not  merely  that  I  have  studied 
no  poet  less  ;  it  is  that  I  should  have  thought  we  were 
in  the  sharpest  contrast.  His  characteristic  fineness  lies 
in  that  very  form  and  restraint  to  which  I  so  seldom 
attain  :  his  characteristic  drawback  in  the  lack  of  that 
full  stream  which  I  am  seldom  without.  The  one  needs 
and  becomes  strict  banks — for  he  could  not  fill  wider 
ones ;  the  other  too  readily  overflows  all  banks.  But 
these  are  casual  specks  on  an  appreciative  article — an 
article  as  unusually  appreciative  as  that  in  the  Chronicle." 

170 


The  Vulgate 

"  French  poetry — all  modern  European  poetry — may 
in  the  ultimate  analysis  be  found  derivable  from  the 
Latin  hymn,"  says  an  Edinburgh  reviewer  (January  191 1). 
Francis  Thompson  in  that  case  was  familiar  with  the 
remote  ancestry  of  his  house.  He  helped  himself  from 
the  hymns. 

Of  the  prose  of  the  Vulgate  he  wrote  in  a  review  of 
a  paper  by  Dr.  Barry  on  St.  Jerome's  revision  : — 

"  No  tongue  can  say  so  much  in  so  little.  And 
literary  diffuseness  is  tamed  in  our  Vulgate  not  only 
by  the  terser  influence  of  the  rustic  Latin,  but  by  the 
needs  begotten  of  Hebrew  brevity.  Nor  to  any  un- 
prejudiced ear  can  this  Vulgate  Latin  be  unmusical. 
For  such  an  ear  the  authority  of  John  Addington 
Symonds  (though  Dr.  Barry  adduces  that  authority) 
is  not  needed  to  certify  its  fine  variety  of  new  move- 
ment. '  Surge,  propera,  arnica  mea,  columba  mea}  formosa 
mea,  et  vent ;'  that  and  the  whole  passage  which  follows, 
or  that  preceding  strain  closing  in — '  Fulcite  me  fioribus, 
stipate  me  ma/is,  quia  amore  langueo ' :  could  prose  have 
more  impassioned  loveliness  of  melody  ?  Compare  it 
even  with  the  beautiful  corresponding  English  of  the 
Authorised  (Protestant)  Version  ;  the  advantage  in  music 
is  not  to  the  English,  but  to  the  soft  and  wooing  fall 
of  these  deliciously  lapsing  syllables.  Classic  prose, 
could  it  even  have  forgotten  its  self-conscious  living- 
up  to  foreign  models,  had  never  the  heart  of  passion 
for  movement  such  as  this,  or  as  the  queenly  wail  of 
the  Lamentations  — '  Quomodo  sedet  sola  civitas  plena 
populo  !  facta  est  quasi  vidua  domina  gentium  ! ' 

"  If  the  Vulgate  be  the  fountain-source,  the  rivers  are 
numerous — and  neglected.  How  many  outside  the 
ranks  of  ecclesiastics  ever  open  the  Breviary,  with  its 
Scriptural  collocations  over  which  has  presided  a  won- 
derful symbolic  insight,  illuminating  them  by  passages 
from  the  Fathers  and  significant  prayers  ?     The  offices 

171 


Of  Words  ;   Of  Origins  ;   Of  Metre 

of  the  Church  are  suggested  poetry — that  of  the  Assump- 
tion, for  example,  the  '  Little  Office,'  and  almost  all 
those  of  Our  Lady.  The  very  arrangement  of  the 
liturgical  year  is  a  suggested  epic,  based  as  it  is  on  a 
deep  parallel  between  the  evolution  of  the  seasons  and 
that  of  the  Christian  soul  of  the  human  race." 

And  further  on  : — 

"  It  is  a  pedant  who  cannot  see  in  St.  Augustine 
one  of  the  great  minds  of  the  world,  master  of  a  great 
style.  Some  flights  in  the  Confessions  are  almost  lyric, 
such  as  the  beautiful  '  Sero  te  amavi,'  or  the  magnificent 
discourse  on  memory.  The  last  books  especially  of  the 
City  of  God  would  sometimes  be  no  wise  incongruous 
beside  the  Paradiso  of  Dante.  St.  Bernard's  prose 
rises  at  times  into  a  beauty  which  is  essentially  that 
of  penetratingly  ethereal  poetry  :  not  for  nothing  has 
Dante  exalted  him  in  the  Paradiso ;  not  for  nothing 
does  such  a  man  exalt  such  men.  In  them  is  the  meat 
and  milk  and  honey  of  religion  ;  and  did  we  read  them 
our  souls  would  be  larger-boned." 

Of  his  early  acquaintance  with  the  Bible  he  writes  : — 

"  The  Bible  as  an  influence  from  the  literary  stand- 
point has  a  late  but  important  date  in  my  life.  As  a 
child  I  read  it,  but  for  its  historical  interest.  Neverthe- 
less, even  then  I  was  greatly,  though  vaguely,  impressed 
by  the  mysterious  imagery,  the  cloudy  grandeurs,  of  the 
Apocalypse.  Deeply  uncomprehended,  it  was,  of  course, 
the  pageantry  of  an  appalling  dream  ;  insurgent  dark- 
ness, with  wild  lights  flashing  through  it ;  terrible 
phantasms,  insupportably  revealed  against  profound 
light,  and  in  a  moment  no  more  ;  on  the  earth  hurryings 
to  and  fro,  like  insects  of  the  earth  at  a  sudden  candle  ; 
unknown  voices  uttering  out  of  darkness  darkened  and 

172 


"Poor  Thief  of  Song" 

disastrous  speech  ;  and  all  this  in  motion  and  turmoil, 
like  the  sands  of  a  fretted  pool.  Such  is  the  Apocalypse 
as  it  inscribes  itself  on  the  verges  of  my  childish 
memories.  In  early  youth  it  again  drew  me  to  itself, 
giving  to  my  mind  a  permanent  and  shaping  direction. 
In  maturer  years  Ecclesiastes  (casually  opened  during 
a  week  of  solitude  in  the  Fens)  masterfully  affected  a 
temperament  in  key  with  its  basic  melancholy.  But 
not  till  quite  later  years  did  the  Bible  as  a  whole  become 
an  influence.  Then,  however,  it  came  with  decisive 
power.  But  not  as  it  had  influenced  most  writers. 
My  style,  being  already  formed,  could  receive  no  evident 
impress  from  it :  its  vocabulary  had  come  to  me  through 
the  great  writers  of  our  language.  In  the  first  place  its 
influence  was  mystical ;  it  revealed  to  me  a  whole  scheme 
of  existence,  and  lit  up  life  like  a  lantern." 

"Assumpta  Maria"  is  "vamped"  from  the  office  of 
Our  Lady  ;  he  had  no  notion  of  concealing  its  origin, 
but  rather  sought  to  point  it  out.  The  prayer  to  the 
Virgin  is  itself  a  confession — 

Remember  me,  poor  Thief  of  Song  ! 

He  wrote  in  1893,  with  an  enclosure  of  poems,  in- 
cluding the  "Assumpta  Maria"  : — 

"They  are  almost  entirely  taken  from  the  Office  of 
the  Assumption,  some  from  the  Canticle,  a  few  images 
from  the  heathen  mythology.  Some  very  beautiful 
images  are  from  a  hymn  by  St.  Nerses  the  Armenian, 
rendered  in  Carmina  Mariana.  You  will  perceive 
therefore  the  reason  of  the  motto  from  Cowley  :  'Thou 
needst  not  make  new  songs,  but  say  the  old.' " 

It  is  at  the  close  of  the  poem  that  Francis  calls  himself 
"  poor  Thief  of  Song."  The  theme  put  honesty  out  of 
reach.     It  has  been  treated  too  often.     Even  Donne's 

173 


Of  Words  ;   Of  Origins ;   Of  Metre 

"  Immensity  cloistered  in  the  dear  womb "   is  part  of 
"  the  great  conspiracy  "  of  Marian  Song. 

The  lines  most  in  question  in  St.  Nerses's  hymn,  thus 
rendered  in  English  by  W.  H.  Kent,  are — 

Dwelling-place  of  light,  be  gladsome  ; 
Temple,  where  the  true  Sun  dwelleth  ; 
Throne  of  God,  rejoice,  thou  bearest 
Him,  the  Word  of  the  Almighty  .  .  . 
Home  of  him  whom  none  may  compass  ; 
Hostel,  where  the  sun  finds  resting  .  .  . 
Daniel's  great  Stone-bearing  Mountain  ; 
Solomon's  fair  Hill  of  Incense  ; 
Fountain  sealed  for  him  that  keeps  it ; 
Garden  closed  for  him  that  plants." 

"  I  remember,"  Francis  writes,  "  Father  Anselm's  ex- 
pression of  comical  surprise  at  a  passage  in  '  Her  Portrait,' 
where  I  had  employed  the  terms  of  Canon  Law  relating 
to  ecclesiastical  property.  Why,  he  said,  here's  a  whole 
page  of  De  Contractibus  in  poetry.  His  surprise  was 
increased  when  I  remarked  that  I  had  never  read  any 
work  on  the  subject.  ...  I  said  I  got  the  terms  where 
any  one  else  could  get  them — from  English  history. 

"  Equal  was  the  surprise  of  another  person  at  finding 
a  whole  passage  of  Anna  Kingsford  in  my  poetry.  It  was 
a  passage  describing  the  earth's  aura,  really  remarkably 
like  a  passage  in  a  book  I  had  not  at  the  time  read." 

In  all  these  cases  he  is  an  imitator  by  choice — inde- 
pendent in  taking  only  what  suits  him  and  depending 
only  where  he  will.  In  one  case  he  was  an  imitator  not 
by  choice  but  by  compulsion,  a  slavish  follower.  There 
was  no  more  choice  for  him  in  following  Patmore  than 
for  a  son  born  like  his  father.  Such  a  poem  as  "  By 
Reason  of  Thy  Law  "  was  born  of  the  Unknown  Eros  odes. 


*  * 


r74 


Poets  do  not  Err 

Here  are  quoted  various  sentences  from  F.  T.'s  note- 
books, letters,  and  published  prose  bearing  on  metre,  or 
allied  subjects. 

Of  the  learning  of  poets  : — 

"  I  have  studied  and  practised  metre  with  arduous 
love  since  I  was  sixteen ;  reviewed  poets  and  poetasters 
this  twenty  years  or  more,  and  never  yet  impeached  one 
of  such  a  matter  as  infraction  or  ignorance  of  academic 
metrical  rule.  For  I  know  they  don't  do  it — either  poet 
or  poetaster.  Poetasters  least  of  all  men,  because  they 
are  your  metrical  Tybalts  and  fight  by  the  book — one, 
two,  and  the  third  in  your  bosom ;  poets  because  they 
have  the  law  in  their  members,  assimilated  by  eager 
obedience  from  their  practised  youth  ;  their  liberty  is 
such  liberty  won  by  absorption  of  law,  and  is  kept  in 
its  orbit  by  their  sensitive  feodality  to  the  invisible — the 
hidden — sun  of  inspiration.  'They  do  not  wrong  but 
with  just  cause':  such  faults  as  they  may  commit  in 
metre  belong  not  to  this  elementary  class.  I  have 
criticised  poets'  metre,  but  ever  in  the  broader  and 
larger  things  where  blemish  accused  them  not  of  ignor- 
ance or  the  carelessness  that  comes  of  inattention  to 
rule.  I  repeat,  they  don't  do  those  things,  and  my 
study  of  metre,  poetry,  and  poets  early  taught  me  that." 

And  he  cites  an  unjustified  attack  on  Stephen  Phillips 
as  a  case  in  point. 

Of  "  Heard  on  the  Mountain,"  a  translation  from 
Hugo  in  New  Poems — a  metrical  experiment : — 

'•  That  splendid  fourteen-syllable  metre  of  Chapman,  to 
which  Mr.  Kipling  has  given  a  new  vitality,  I  have  here 
treated  after  the  manner  of  Drydenian  rhyming  heroics  ; 
not  only  with  the  occasional  triplet,  but  also  the  occa- 
sional Alexandrine,  represented  by  a  line  of  eight  accents. 
Students  of  metre  will  see  the  analogy  to  be  strict,  the 

175 


Of  Words  ;   Of  Origins  ;   Of  Metre 

line  of  eight  being  merely  the  carrying  to  completion  of 
the  catalectic  line  of  seven,  as  the  Alexandrine  is  merely 
the  filling  out  of  the  catalectic  line  of  five  accents." 

Of  "The  Ode  to  the  Setting  Sun  "  :— 

"An  ode  I  have  thought  not  unworthy  of  preserva- 
tion, though  it  was  my  first  published  poem  of  any 
importance.  In  view  of  the  considerable  resemblance 
between  the  final  stanza  and  a  well-known  stanza  in 
Mr.  Davidson's  '  Ballad  of  a  Nun,'  it  is  right  to  state  that 
'  The  Ode  to  the  Setting  Sun  '  was  published  as  long 
ago  as  1889.  The  poem  has  some  interest  to  me  in  view 
of  the  frequent  statement  that  I  modelled  the  metre 
of  'The  Hound  of  Heaven'  on  the  ode  metre  of 
Mr.  Patmore.  'The  Ode  to  the  Setting  Sun'  was 
published  before  I  had  seen  any  of  Mr.  Patmore's  work  ; 
and  a  comparison  of  the  two  poems  will  therefore  show 
exactly  the  extent  to  which  the  later  poem  was  affected 
by  that  great  poet's  practice.  The  ode  metre  of  New 
Poems  is,  with  this  exception,  completely  based  on  the 
principles  which  Mr.  Patmore  may  virtually  be  said  to 
have  discovered." 

Of  accent  and  quantity  : — 

"  The  classic  poets  are  careful  to  keep  up  an  interchange 
between  accent  and  quantity,  an  approach  and  recession, 
just  as  is  the  case  with  the  great  English  poets.  Yet 
with  all  the  lover-like  coquetry  between  the  two  elements, 
they  are  careful  that  they  shall  never  wed — again  as 
with  the  great  English  poets.  But  (and  here  lies  the 
difference)  the  position  of  the  two  elements  is  exactly 
reversed.  It  is  quantity  which  gives  the  law — is  the 
masculine  element — in  classic  verse  ;  it  is  accent  in 
English.  In  English,  quantity  takes  the  feminine  or 
subordinate  place,  as  accent  does  in  classic  verse.  In 
both  it  is  bad  metre  definitely  to  unite  the  two." 

176 


Blank  Verse 

Sending   poetry  from    Pantasaph,  October    1894,  he 
writes  to  A.  M. : — 

"  My  dear  lady,  .  .  .  the  long  poem,  ('  The  Anthem  of 
Earth ')  was  written  only  as  an  exercise  in  blank  verse  ; 
indeed,  as  you  will  see,  I  have  transferred  to  it  whole 
passages  from  my  prose  articles.  So  it  is  solely  for  your 
judgment  on  the  metre  that  I  send  it.  It  is  my  first 
serious  attempt  to  handle  that  form,  and  it  is  not  likely 
that  I  have  succeeded  all  at  once  ;  especially  as  I  have 
not  confined  myself  to  the  strict  limits  of  the  metre,  but 
have  laid  my  hand  at  one  clash  among  all  the  licences 
with  which  the  Elizabethans  build  up  their  harmonies. 
The  question  is  whether  individual  passages  succeed 
sufficiently  to  justify  the  belief  that  I  might  reach 
mastery  with  practice,  or  whether  I  fail  in  such  a  fashion 

as  to  suggest  native  inaptitude  for  the  metre.     M 

thinks  the  poem  a  failure.  Being  a  mistress  of  numerous 
metre,  she  counts  all  her  feet ;  though  her  chosen 
method  is  the  dactylic,  since  she  uses  her  fingers  for  the 
purpose.  It  is  well  known  that  by  this  profound  and 
exhaustive  method  of  practical  study,  you  may  qualify 
yourself  to  sit  in  judgment  on  Shakespeare's  metre,  if 
he  should  submit  his  MS.  to  you  from  the  Shades.  I 
confess  my  practice  is  so  slovenly  that  if  anyone  should 
assure  me  that  my  lines  had  eleven  syllables  apiece,  I 
should  be  obliged  to  allow  I  had  never  counted  them. 
We  poor  devils  who  write  by  ear  have  a  long  way  to  go 
before  we  attain  to  the  scientific  company  of  poets  like 
M ,  who  has  her  verses  at  her  fingers'  ends. — F.  T." 

To  the  same  purpose  are  notes  on  Henley's  "  Volun- 
taries" : — 

"They  are  in  so-called  'irregular'  lyric  metre,  ebbing 
and  flowing  with  the  motion  itself.  Irregular  it  is  not, 
though  the  law  is  concealed.  Only  a  most  delicate 
response  to   the  behests  of  inspiration  can  make  such 

177  M 


Of  Words  ;   Of  Origins  ;   Of  Metre 

verse  successful.  As  some  persons  have  an  instinctive 
sense  of  orientation  by  which  they  know  the  quarter  of 
the  East,  so  the  poet  with  this  gift  has  a  subtle  sense  of 
hidden  metrical  law,  and  in  his  most  seeming-vagrant 
metres  revolves  always  (so  to  speak)  round  a  felt  though 
invisible  centre  of  obedience." 

The  immethodical  exactitude  of  his  method  is  further 
suggested  in  his  note-book  : — 

"Temporal  variations  of  metre  responsive  to  the 
emotions,  like  the  fluctuations  of  human  respiration, 
which  also  varies  indefinitely,  under  the  passage  of 
changeful  emotions,  and  yet  keeps  an  approximate 
temporal  uniformity." 

Here  he  evidently  alludes  particularly  to  the  ode 
metre  of  "  The  Unknown  Eros,"  for  which  Patmore 
claimed  that  the  length  of  line  was  controlled  by  its 
emotional  significance.  On  this  subject  another  note 
must  directly  bear.  It  is  to  the  effect  that  the  matter 
forces  the  metre ;  that  the  poet  is  the  servant,  not 
master,  of  his  theme,  and  that  he  must  write  in  such 
metre  as  it  dictates. 

Again  he  writes  : — 

"  Every  great  poet  makes  accepted  metre  a  quite  new 
metre,  imparts  to  it  a  totally  new  movement,  impresses 
his  own  individuality  upon  it." 

And  again  : — 

"  All  verse  is  rhythmic  ;  but  in  the  graver  and  more 
subtle  forms  the  rhythm  is  veiled  and  claustral ;  it  not 
only  avoids  obtruding  itself,  but  seeks  to  withdraw  itself 
from  notice." 

And  again  : — 

"  Metrically  Poe  is  the  lineal  projector  of  Swinburne, 

178 


Numerous  Versification 

and  hence  of  modern  metre  at  large — an  influence  most 
disastrous  and  decadent,  like  nearly  all  his  influence  on 
letters."  » 

His  own  choice  among  his  metrical  exercises  was  "  The 
Making  of  Viola,"  of  which  a  critic  has  said  (the  Nation, 
November  23, 1907)  "  that  the  words  seem  never  to  alight, 
they  so  bound  and  rebound,  and  are  so  agile  with  life." 

In  an  early  Merry  England  article  he  writes  of 
Crash  aw : — 

"  His  employment  (in  the  '  Hymn  to  St.  Teresa  '  and  its 
companion  'The  Bleeding  Heart')  of  those  mixed  four- 
foot  Iambics  and  Trochaics  so  often  favoured  by  modern 
poets,  marks  an  era  in  the  metre.  Coleridge  (in  the 
Biographia  Literarid)  adopts  an  excellent  expression  to 
distinguish  measures  which  follow  the  changes  of  the 
sense  from  those  which  are  regulated  by  a  pendulum- 
like beat  or  tune — however  new  the  tune — overpowering 
all  intrinsic  variety.  The  former  he  styles  numerous  versi- 
fication. Crashaw  is  beautifully  numerous,  attaining  the 
most  delicate  music  by  veering  pause  and  modulation — 

Miser  of  sound  and  syllable,  no  less 
Than  Midas  of  his  coinage. 


-s^ 


We  have  said  advisedly  that  the  '  St.  Teresa '  marks  an 
era  in  metre.  For  Coleridge  was  largely  indebted  to  it 
and  acknowledged  his  debt." 

1  To  this  he  recurs  in  a  note  on  Tennyson  : — "  Tennyson  too  pictorial. 
Picture  verges  on  marches  of  sister-art,  painting.  Feminine  ;only  not  so  entirely 
so  as  Swinburne  ; — still  has  remnants  of  statelier  mood  and  time.  Metre — 
beginning  of  degeneration  completed  in  and  by  Swinburne." 


79 


CHAPTER  IX:  AT  MONASTERY  GATES 

In  1892  F.  T.  had  gone  to  Pantasaph.  He  was  quartered, 
at  first,  in  Bishop's  House,  at  the  monastery  gates,1  and 
the  sandalled  friars  looked  after  all  his  wants — from 
boots  to  dogma. 

"Thompson  is  ever  so  much  better,"  writes  Fr. 
Marianus  soon  after  the  poet's  arrival.  "  He  looks  it  too. 
He  is  less  melancholy,  in  fact  at  times  quite  lively." 
And  they  cared  for  him  delicately  : — 

"  There  is  only  one  little  thing  about  which  I  have  some  diffi- 
culty. I  know  Thompson  must  need  now  and  again  some  little 
things,  but  I  don't  like  to  ask  him  does  he  need  anything  (though 
I  have  supplied  him  with  paper,  ink,  &c),  and  I  should  feel  grate- 
ful if  you  would  kindly  write  to  Thompson  and  tell  him  to  ask  me 
for  anything  he  may  want — that  I  am  his  procurator." 

His  own  first  letter  from  Wales  : — 

"  Cen  est  fait,  as  regards  the  opium.  ...  I  am  very 
comfortable,  thanks  to  your  kindness  and  forethought. 
Father  Anselm  seems  to  have  taken  a  fancy  to  me — also 
he  is  afraid  of  my  being  lonely — and  comes  to  see  me 
every  other  day.  He  took  me  all  over  the  Monastery  on 
Monday,  and  has  just  left  me  after  a  prolonged  discus- 
sion of  the  things  which  'none  of  us  know  anything 
about,'  as  Marianus  says  when  he  is  getting  the  worst  of 
an  argument." 

Father  Anselm,  now  Archbishop  of  Simla,  was  the  one 
of  the  friars  of  whom  the  poet  spoke  as  his  philosophical 

1  Afterwards  he  lodged  at  the  post-office,  and  finally  in  a  cottage  on  the 
hill  behind  the  monastery. 

180 


Franciscan   Friends 

schoolmaster,  and  to  whom  he  was  indebted  for  the 
awakening  of  new  intellectual  interests.  Coventry 
Patmore,  too,  as  his  correspondence  testifies,  knew  how 
to  appreciate  the  hospitality  and  good  talk  of  the  friars. 
Both  the  poets  contributed  to  the  Annals  of  Father 
Anselm's  editorship.  Between  the  younger  poet  and 
Father  Anselm  there  sprang  up  a  close  friendship,  which 
was  not  without  its  influence  upon  Thompson's  later 
work.  During  his  Guardianship  at  Crawley  Father 
Anselm  was  responsible  for  the  inception  of  the 
Roger  Bacon  Society,  whose  meetings  F.  T.  sometimes 
attended. 

Father  Alphonsus,  whose  death  in  191 1  deprived 
English  Franciscans  of  their  Provincial,  also  had  much 
intercourse  with  Francis  Thompson.  For  this  priest,  as 
he  himself  alleged,  the  odes  of  Coventry  Patmore  made  a 
new  earth  and  a  new  Heaven. 

It  is  not,  perhaps,  impertinent  here  and  now  to 
attribute  to  the  younger  poet's  association  with  the 
friars  an  allusion  in  one  of  the  most  famous  of  his  lines. 
"  The  bearded  counsellors  of  God  "  has  the  local  colour 
if  not  of  Paradise,  at  least  of  Pantasaph.1 

"  Poetry  clung  about  the  cowls  of  his  Order,"  wrote 
Francis,  in  dealing  with  the  works  of  St.  Francis  and  of 
Thomas  of  Celano.  He  had  the  right  companions,  as 
far  as  any  were  admitted,  for  the  new  periods  of  com- 
position. 

They,  as  he,  had  sacred  commerce  cum  Domina  Pau- 
pevtate.  These,  his  companions,  were  once  named  by 
her  "my  Brothers  and  most  dear  Friends";  they, 
entertaining  her  on  bread  and  water,  had  given  her  a 
couch  upon  earth  and  the  grass. 

"  When  she  asked  for  a  pillow,  they  straightway  brought  her 
a  stone,  and  laid  it  under  her  Head.  So,  after  she  had  slept  for  a 
brief  space  in  peace,  she  arose  and  asked  the  Brothers  to   show 

1  The  Capuchins  (Franciscans),  are   peculiar  in  aspect  among    Religious 
Orders  as  bearded  friars. 

l8l 


At  Monastery  Gates 

her  their  Cloister.  And  they,  leading  her  to  the  Summit  of  a  Hill, 
showed  her  the  wide  World,  saying :  This  is  our  Cloister,  0  Lady 
Poverty.  Thereupon  she  bade  them  all  sit  down  together,  and 
opening  her  mouth  she  began  to  speak  unto  them  Words  of  Life." 

Francis  her  poet  heard,  though  at  that  time  he  was 
not  come  to  the  hills  about  Pantasaph.  He  had  himself 
found  stones  for  pillows  in  the  market-place,  and  had 
written  of  one  to  whom  he  had  half-likened  himself — 

Anchorite,  who  didst  dwell 
With  all  the  world  for  cell ! ' 

St.  Francis  himself  had  other  words  for  the  same 
thought  : — "  Meditate  as  much  while  on  this  journey 
as  if  you  were  shut  up  in  a  hermitage  or  in  your  cell,  for 
wherever  we  are,  wherever  we  go,  we  carry  our  cell 
with  us  ;  Brother  Body  is  our  cell." 

Of  the  grounds  for  a  good  understanding  between  the 
priests  and  the  poet  there  are  hints  in  Richard  de  Bary's 
Franciscan  Days  of  Vigil : — 

"  Francis  Thompson  was  just  then  [1894]  a  favourite  with  the 
Order,  and  there  were  keen  discussions  about  his  mystical  intui- 
tions. In  the  spirit  of  the  Franciscan  Laudes  Domini,  the  Breviary 
Offices  of  the  Seasons,  Thompson  recalled  them,  and  expounded 
the  phases  of  asceticism  that  ran  with  them  in  his  poem,  '  From 
the  Night  of  Forebeing.' 


"  The  centre  of  interest  in  the  household  was  the  poet,  Francis 
Thompson,  who  spent  the  summer  of  that  year  in  a  neighbour- 
ing cottage.  Walks  in  the  late  evening  did  not  result  in  much 
conversation  ;  but  at  evening  gatherings  in  my  room  the  poet 
used  often  to  join  the  party,  and  argued  with  vigour  and  persuasive- 
ness on  favourite  topics.    The  Franciscans  had  learnt  a  kind  of 

1  This  was  written  long  before  Mr.  Montgomery  Carmichael's  translation 
of  The  Lady  Poverty  brought  the  thirteenth-century  writer's  claim  to  the 
world  as  the  Franciscan  cloister  to  Thompson's  notice. 

182 


More   Poetry 


art  of  drawing  their  mystical  guest  into  conversation.  The  way 
was  to  introduce  a  subtle  contradiction  to  his  pet  theories,  which 
would  in  a  moment  produce  a  storm  of  protesting  eloquence." 

They  drew  him  also  on  one  only  occasion  into  more 
formal  speech.  Fr.  Anselm  prevailed  upon  him  to 
enter  into  the  discussion  that  followed  a  paper  read  by 
the  Hon.  W.  Gibson,  now  Lord  Ashbourne,  at  a  meeting 
of  the  Roger  Bacon  Society,  held  at  the  Monastery, 
Crawley,  in  January  1898. 

In  April,  1894,  an  observer  writes  to  W.  M.  : — 

"  You  will  be  glad  to  hear  that  Francis  has  written  an  Ode 
which  I  hear  is  longer  than  anything  he  has  done  yet.  Also  that 
the  '  frenzy '  being  on  him  he  has  begun  another  poem  yesterday. 
No  one  sees  him  but  Fr.  Anselm,  to  whom  he  comes  every  evening 
and  whom  he  tells  of  his  work.  He  told  him  last  night  that 
since  you  had  left  he  seemed  to  have  a  return  of  all  the  old  poetic 
power.  Of  course  he  is  flying  over  hill  and  dale  and  never  to  be 
seen,  but  I  am  sure  you  will  be  as  glad  as  I  am  at  this  fresh  de- 
velopment— especially  as  your  and  Alice's  visit  has  evidently 
called  it  forth."  * 

To  the  departed  visitors  the  poet  himself  wrote  : — 

"  Bishop's  House,  Pantasaph. 

"  Dearest  Wilfrid  and  Alice, — As  you  are  together 
in  my  thoughts,  so  let  me  join  you  together  in  this  note. 
I  cannot  express  to  you  what  deep  happiness  your  visit 
gave  me ;  how  dear  it  was  to  see  your  faces  again.  I 
think  'the  leaves  fell  from  the  day'  indeed  when  your 
train  went  out  of  the  station  ;  and  I  never  heard  the 
birds  with  such  sad  voices. 

"  I  send  you  herewith  the  poem  I  have  been  at  work 
on.  It  is  very  long,  as  you  will  see — as  long,  I  think, 
as  Wordsworth's  great  ode.  That  would  not  matter — 
'  so  I  were  equal  with  him  in  renown.'    But  as  it  is ! 

"  My  fear  is  that  thought  in  it  has  strangled  poetic  im- 
pulse.    However  of  all  that  you  are  better  judges  than  I. 

1  "  After  Her  Going  "  was  written  in  these  days. 
183 


At  Monastery  Gates 

"  Does  the  dear  Singer  still  refuse  me  her  songs  ?  My 
health  is  better  again,  though  unfortunately  more  fluc- 
tuant than  I  could  wish.  Love  to  all  the  chicks.  With 
very  best  love  to  yourselves,  dear  ones, — Yours  ever, 

Francis  Thompson." 

In  another  letter  F.  T.  tells  of  his  recurring  powers  of 
composition. 

"Am  overflowing  with  a  sudden  access  of  literary 
impulse.  I  think  I  could  write  a  book  in  three  months, 
if  thoughts  came  down  in  such  an  endless  avalanche  as 
they  are  doing  at  present.  But  the  collecting  and  re- 
casting of  my  later  poems  for  Lane  blocks  the  way  for 
the  next  month,  so  that  1  can  only  write  an  essay  in  an 
odd  hour  or  two  when  I  lie  awake  in  bed." 

He  heralds  the  coming  of  his  sacred  poetry  in  "From 
the  Night  of  Forebeing" — 

.  .  .  The  wings 
Hear  I  not  in  prsevenient  winnowings 
Of  coming  songs,  that  lift  my  hair  and  stir  it  ? 

That — but  low  breathe  it,  lest  the  Nemesis 

Unchild  me,  vaunting  this — 

Is  bliss,  the  hid,  hugged,  swaddled  bliss  ! 

O  youngling  Joy  caressed, 

That  on  my  now  first-mothered  breast 

Pliest  the  strange  wonder  of  thine  infant  lip. 

From  the  highlands  of  his  poetry,  from  the  glory  of 
height  in  which  he  wrote  "The  Dread  of  Height"  and 
other  poems  of  "Sight  and  Insight,"  he  looked  down 
upon  his  former  poetry  : — 

Therefore  I  do  repent 
That  with  religion  vain, 
And  misconceived  pain, 
I  have  my  music  bent 

To  waste  on  bootless  things  its  skiey-gendered  rain. 
184 


Depression 

The  writing  done,  he  is  again  cast  down  : — 

"I  should  be  very  glad  if  you  will  send  me  the 
Edinburgh.  It  would  do  me  good ;  I  never  since  I 
knew  you  felt  so  low-hearted  and  empty  of  all  belief  in 
myself.  I  could  find  it  in  my  heart  to  pitch  my  book 
into  the  fire ;  and  I  shall  be  thoroughly  glad  to  get  it  off 
to  you,  for  my  heart  sinks  at  the  sight  or  thought  of 
it.  The  one  remaining  poem  which  had  stuck  in  my 
gizzard  at  the  last  I  succeeded  in  polishing  off  last  night, 
sitting  up  all  night  to  do  it ;  and  I  must  start  on  the 
preface  as  soon  as  this  letter  is  off." 

A  neighbour's  reminiscence  is  that  given  by  Fr.  David 
Bearne,  S.  J.,  in  The  Irish  MontJdy,  November  1908,  who 

"  recalls  two  occasions  on  which  I  had  the  privilege  of  chatting 
with  the  poet — once  tete-a-tete  in  the  delightful  seclusion  of  the 
gardens  at  St.  Beuno's  College,  within  sight  of  Snowdon  and  of 
the  sea  ;  once  in  the  thick  of  the  pious  crowd  that  throng  each  year 
to  Pantasaph  for  the  Portiuncula.  Of  each  occasion  I  retain  the 
happiest  memories,  though  I  cannot  recall  the  exact  words  of  any 
single  sentence  that  he  uttered.  He  knew  me  only  as  a  Jesuit 
student  of  theology,  and  though  I  longed  to  tell  him  how  much  I 
loved  his  work,  I  failed  to  do  so,  partly  from  a  sort  of  reverential 
shyness,  and  partly  because,  though  he  was  no  chatterer,  he  led 
the  conversation.  On  one  occasion  I  know  he  had  just  been 
making  a  pilgrimage  to  St.  Winefride's  Well.  He  spoke  of  it  at 
length  and  with  great  enthusiasm.  But  my  own  mind  was  occu- 
pied with  the  man,  rather  than  with  what  he  said.  ...  As  men 
commonly  understand  the  word  there  was  no  '  fascination  '  about 
Thompson.  There  was  something  better.  There  was  the  sancta 
simplicitas  of  the  true  poet  and  the  real  child." 

In  1893  his  father  was  at  Rhyl,  and  Francis  sought 
him  there,  but  without  invitation.     He  writes  : — 

"  I  went  over  on  Monday — only  to  find  that  he  had 
left  the  previous  Wednesday,  after  having  been  there 
for  a  month,  which  things  are  strange." 

To  Dr.  Thompson  the  strangeness  would  be  in  Francis's 

185 


At  Monastery  Gates 

unwontedly  active  desire  to  see  him.  It  is  probable 
that  each  exaggerated  the  other's  feeling  of  estrange- 
ment. When,  in  April  1896,  Francis  heard  that  his  father 
was  dying,  he  went  to  Ashton,  but  too  late.  After  the 
funeral  he  writes  : — 

"  I    never    saw    my    father    again,     I    cannot    speak 

about  it  at   present. made  it  very  bitter 

for  me.  It  has  been  nothing  but  ill-health  and  sorrow 
lately,  but  I  must  not  trouble  you  with  these  things. 
I  saw  my  sister  looking  the  merest  girl  still,  and 
sweeter  than  ever.  She  did  not  look  a  day  older  than 
ten  years  ago.  She  said  I  looked  very  changed  and 
worn."  l 

At  Downing  he  had  neighbours  in  the  Feilding  family, 
and  it  was  to  the  monastery  church  that  Lady  Denbigh 
came  to  "  make  her  soul "  at  the  penitential  seasons  of 
the  year.  This  church  her  husband  began  to  build 
when  he  was  an  Anglican  ;  then,  changing  his  religion, 
he  had  changed  the  dedication  of  his  bricks  and  mortar. 
From  a  letter  of  the  Hon.  Everard  Feilding  to  W.  M. 
after  F.  T.'s  death  : — 

"  Your  letter  reached  me  at  a  time  when  my  mind,  like  that, 
I  think,  of  many  others,  was  full  of  Francis  Thompson  ;  and  during 
the  preceding  three  nights  I  had  been  reading  and  re-reading  aloud 
to  two  or  three  friends  certain  of  his  poems  which  had  specially 
touched  me,  including  the  Noctum,  infinitely  pathetic  from  my 
knowledge,  however  slight,  of  the  man. 

"  Need  I  say  that  I  am  truly  touched  to  hear  that  Thompson 
should  have  thought  my  modest  appreciation  of  his  work  as  any- 
thing more  than  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  ?  I  only 
met  him  three  times,  each  time  in  the  company  of  my  friend 
Head,2  who  shared  my  admiration.  Our  meeting  came  about  in 
an  absurd  enough  wise.     A  ghost  (possibly  you  have  heard,  or 

1  The  mortuary  card,  preserved  in  F.  T.'s  prayer-book,  runs. — 

"  Of  your  charity  pray  for  the  soul  of  Charles  Thompson,  M.R.C.S.,  L.S.A., 
who  departed  this  life  April  9th,  1896,  aged  72,  fortified  by  the  rites  of 
Holy  Church" — with  the  motto  "The  silent  and  wise  man  shall  be 
honoured." 

2  Dr.  Henry  Head,  F.R.S. 

186 


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The  Pantasaph  Ghost 

not  heard,  of  my  taste  for  these  creatures)  was  reported  active  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  Pantasaph,  on  my  brother's  place  in  Wales. 
My  own  inclination  supplied  the  motive,  and  an  idle  week  of  Head's 
the  occasion,  of  a  visit  there,  and  we  camped  a  few  nights  in  a 
derelict  mansion,  rejoicing  in  the  appropriately  ominous  name  of 
Pickpocket  Hall,  in  hopes  of  interviewing  the  spectre.  Needless 
to  say,  we  failed.  But  we  got  the  story  of  the  Irish  monk ;  also 
the  story  of  the  practical  nun,  who  scented  buried  treasure  which 
she  hoped  to  unearth  to  the  profit  of  her  community ;  and  of  the 
oldest  inhabitant ;  and,  finally,  of  the  Poet.  The  people  at  the 
monastery  had  told  us  that  Thompson  had  been  a  witness,  and 
we  decided  on  a  call ;  and  at  about  five  one  evening  made  our  way 
to  the  tiny  cottage  where  he  lodged,  and  asked  for  him.  He  was 
still  in  bed.  We  returned  at  6.30.  He  was  still  in  bed.  So  we 
concocted  a  letter,  suitable,  as  we  imagined,  to  the  person  who 
had  written  Thompson's  poems,  not  quite  English,  somewhat 
elided,  and  as  inverted  as  we  could  manage,  ending  with  an  invi- 
tation to  breakfast  at  9.30  that  night  and  a  conference  with  our 
hobgoblin.  And  somewhat  pleased  with  our  effort,  we  retired  to 
our  haunted  mansion  and  awaited  events.  At  9.30  he  came  and 
breakfasted  while  we  supped.  We  said  at  once  to  one  another : 
'  This  is  not  the  man  to  whom  we  wrote  that  letter.'  For,  instead 
of  parables  in  polysyllables  and  a  riot  of  imagery,  we  found  sim- 
plicity and  modesty  and  a  manner  which  would  have  been  almost 
commonplace  if  it  had  not  been  so  sincere.  But  the  charm  and 
interest  of  his  talk  grew  with  the  night,  and  it  was  already  dawn 
when,  the  ghost  long  since  forgotten,  we  escorted  him  back  across 
the  snow  to  his  untimely  lunch.  He  told  us,  I  remember,  of  his 
poetical  development,  and  of  how,  until  recently,  he  had  fancied 
that  the  end  of  poetry  was  reached  in  the  stringing  together  of 
ingenious  images,  an  art  in  which,  he  somewhat  naively  confessed, 
he  knew  himself  to  excel ;  but  that  now  he  knew  it  should  reach 
further,  and  he  hoped  for  an  improvement  in  his  future  work. 
New  Poems  was  subsequent  to  this  meeting.  It  was  only  in  his 
account  of  the  ghost,  which  had  '  charged  his  body  like  a  battery 
so  that  he  felt  thunderstorms  in  his  hair,'  that  the  imaginary 
individual  to  whom  we  had  addressed  our  letter  revealed  himself. 

"  He  dined  with  us  twice  afterwards,  the  second  time  appearing 
an  hour  late,  with  his  head  tied  up  in  an  appalling  bandage,  the 
result  of  having  been  knocked  down  by  a  hansom,  so  that  I  took 
his  arrival  under  the  circumstances  as  a  compliment  second  only 
to  your  own  kind  letter.    For  years  I  haven't  seen  him.    A  letter, 

187 


At  Monastery   Gates 

to  ask  him  if  he  would  renew  acquaintance,  has  several  times 
trembled  on  the  tip  of  my  pen  ;  but  I  was  told  he  had  become 
inaccessible,  and  it  never  went,  and  now  I  am  very  sorry." 

Something  of  the  Pantasaph  ghost  got  into  verse, 
which  I  take  from  a  note-book  : — 

More  creatures  lackey  man 

Than  he  has  note  of :  through  the  ways  of  air 

Angels  go  here  and  there 

About  his  businesses  :  we  tread  the  floor 

Of  a  whole  sea  of  spirits  :  evermore 

Oozy  with  spirits  ebbs  the  air  and  flows 

Round  us,  and  no  man  knows. 

Spirits  drift  upon  the  populous  breeze 

And  throng  the  twinkling  leaves  that  twirl  on  summer  trees. 

In  notes  headed  "  Varia  on  Magic"  he  quotes  the 
Anatomy  of  Melancholy  : — 

"The  air  is  not  so  full  of  flies  in  summer,  as  it  is  at 
all  times  of  invisible  devils :  this  Paracelsus  stiffly 
maintains." 

F.  T.  wrote  to  A.  M.  after  the  meeting  :  — 

"  Is  it  true  that  you  are  going  to  collect  your  contri- 
butions to  the  papers  during  the  last  few  years  ?  I 
sincerely  hope  so.  .  .  .  There  was  a  Dr.  Head,  a  member 
of  the  Savile  Club,  over  here  last  autumn  with  Everard 
Feilding,  who  spoke  with  great  enthusiasm  of  your  "  Auto- 
lycus."  He  quoted  a  bit  relating,  I  think,  to  Angelica 
Kaufmann,1  who  spent  a  large  number  of  years  in  '  taking 
the  plainness  off  paper.'  The  phrase  delighted  him,  as 
it  did  me  who  had  not  seen  it.  ...  I  passed  a  pleasant 
night  with  the  two.  We  were  sleeping  in  a  haunted 
house  to  interview  the  ghost ;  but  as  he  was  a  racing-man, 
he  probably  found  our  conversation  too  literary  to  put 
off  his  incognito." 

1  It  was  not  Angelica,  but  Mrs.  Delany. 

1 88 


He  is  in  Difficulties 

The  friars  helped  him  to  another  companion, 
Coventry  Patmore,  who  as  a  member  of  the  Third 
Order,  went  in  1894  to  stay  at  Pantasaph.  There  Father 
Anselm,  a  bachelor  of  St.  Francis,  with  the  Lady 
Poverty  first  among  his  feminine  acquaintance,  could 
meet  the  greatest  of  English  love-poets  upon  equal  terms. 
It  was  to  Fr.  Anselm  that  Francis  had  lent  Patmore's 
Religio  Poetee  before  trusting  himself  to  review  it,  and  it 
was  by  the  same  friar  that  he  was  helped  to  appreciate 
Patmore's  trustworthiness  as  a  witness  to  divine  truths. 
By  none  save  by  a  priest  of  the  Church  would  the  poet 
of  the  Church  have  been  satisfied  that  he  might  lawfully 
accept,  or  attempt  to  accept,  teaching  that  had  once 
seemed  to  him  inimical  to  orthodoxy.  Religio  Poetcz,  at 
first  a  stumbling-block,  was  to  become  the  corner-stone  of 
his  later  poetry.  Two  years  before  (in  August  1892)  he 
had  said  there  were  two  points  in  C.  P.'s  teaching — as  to 
the  nature  of  the  union  between  God  and  man  in  this 
world  and  the  next,  and  the  definition  of  the  constitu- 
tion of  Heaven — that  he  refused  absolutely  to  accept. 
He  went  specially  to  Crawley  in  1892  to  consult  Fr. 
Cuthbert  on  these  points.  And  he  had  at  first  only 
unwillingly  admitted  Patmore's  power  over  him.  To  a 
passage  of  St.  John  (chap,  xxi.)  he  adds  a  note  that  reveals 
his  mood  : — 

"  Amen,  Amen,  I  say  to  thee  ;  when  thou  wert 
younger,  thou  didst  gird  thyself,  and  didst  walk  where 
thou  wouldst.  But  when  thou  shalt  be  old,  thou  shalt 
stretch  forth  thy  hands  and  another  shall  gird  thee,  and 
lead  thee  where  thou  wouldst  not." 

To  this  he  adds  :  "Apply  to  spiritual  maturity." 

The  barriers  down,  they  quickly  recognised  cause  for 
intimacy.  It  was  during  Patmore's  first  visit  that 
Francis  made  the  discovery.  He  seems  at  first  hardly 
to  have  known  it.     Writing  of  it  to  A.  M.  : — 

"  Dear  Lady,  I  thank  you  for  your  kind  letter,  though 

189 


At  Monastery  Gates 

it  observed  an  impenitent  silence  on  the  subject  of  your 
songs  unsent.  (That  last  phrase  has  a  ring  of  the  only 
Lewis.) l  I  have  had  a  charming  visit  from  Mr.  Patmore. 
He  bore  himself  towards  me  with  a  dignity  and  magna- 
nimity which  are  not  of  this  age's  stature.  By  the  way, 
he  repeated  to  me  two  or  three  short  poems  addressed 
to  yourself.  I  hope  there  may  be  a  series  of  such  songs. 
You  would  then  have  a  triple  tiara  indeed — crowned  by 
yourself,  by  me,  and  highest  crowned  by  him." 

But  afterwards  in  the  more  vivid  light  of  memory, 
he  said  : — 

"Though  never  a  word  on  either  side  directly  touched 
or  explained  the  exceptional  nature  of  the  proposal,  it 
was  well  understood  between  us — by  me  no  less  than 
by  him — that  it  was  no  common  or  conventional  friend- 
ship he  asked  of  me.  Not  therefore  has  he  sought  out  my 
Welsh  hermitage ;  and  scalpelled  the  fibres  of  me." 

As  a  rule  Francis  found  as  much  solitude  among  the 
Welsh  mountains  as  in  the  desolation  of  the  Harrow 
Road,  but  now  Patmore  walked  with  him. 

F.  T.  notes  their  common  pleasure  in  the  landscape, 
"  particularly  beautiful — something  to  do  with  the  light, 
Patmore  thinks."  To  be  in  common  light  is  even  better 
preparation  for  the  communion  of  poets  than  to  be  on 
common  ground.  Friar  and  seer  between  them  enclosed 
him  at  evening  in  the  monastic  parlour.  Patmore 
writes  : — 

"  Francis  Thompson  and  all. the  Fathers  spent  two  hours  last 
night  in  my  room,  and  we  had  excellent  talk.  Father  Anselm, 
the  Superior,  and  a  profound  contemplative,  said  he  had  never 
read  anything  so  fine  as  the  '  Precursor.'  He  and  I  had  a  long 
talk  about  nuptial  love,  and  he  went  all  lengths  with  me  in  honour 
of  the  marriage  embrace.  The  Fathers  help  me  to  get  through 
my  cigarettes,  of  which  I  should  like  to  have  another  consignment 
as  soon  as  possible." 

1  An  allusion  to  Lewis  Morris's  Songs  Unsung. 
I90 


Sanctity  Essential   Song 

And  again: — 

"  I  spend  part  of  my  day  with  Francis  Thompson,  who  is  a 
delightful  companion,  full  of  the  best  talk." 

With  the  reading  of  Religio  Poetce  and  the  little  book 
of  St.  Bernard  translations,  Francis  discovers  their 
author  to  be  "deeply  perceptive  of  the  Scriptures'  sym- 
bolic meanings,  scouted  by  moderns  ;  and  his  instant 
intuitional  use  of  the  symbolic  imagery  gives  his  work 
the  quality  of  substantial  poetry.  In  proportion  to  the 
height  of  their  sanctity  the  Saints  are  inevitable  poets. 
Sanctity  is  essential  song."  These  essays  moved  Francis 
to  the  rare  point  of  letter-writing  : — 

"  The  Monastery,  Pantasaph,  June  15,  '93. 

"  Dear  Sir, — The  esoteric  essays — which  I  naturally 
turned  to  first — could  only  have  come  from  the  writer  of 
The  Unknown  Eros.  One  alone  I  have  gracelessness — 
not  to  dispute — but  to  wish  to  extend.  It  is  that  on  the 
1  Precursor,'  where  I  quite  admit  the  interpretation,  but 
am  inclined  to  stickle  for  an  interpretation  which  would 
cover  and  include  your  own.  Against  one  reprehensible 
habit  of  yours,  however,  revealed  in  this  book,  I  feel 
forced  to  utter  a  protest.  In  a  fragment  of  a  projected 
article,  which  has  remained  a  fragment,  I  had  written 
of  'poets  born  with  an  instinctive  sense  of  veritable 
correspondences  hidden  from  the  multitude.'  Then  I 
went  on  thus  :  '  In  this,  too,  lies  real  distinction  and 
fancy.  Leigh  Hunt,  interpreting  Coleridge  as  shallowly 
as  Charmian  interpreted  the  Soothsayer,  said  that  fancy 
detected  outward  analogies,  but  imagination  inward  ones. 
The  truth  is  that  inward  resemblance  may  be  as  super- 
ficial as  outward  resemblance ;  and  it  is  then  the 
product  of  fancy,  or  fantasy.  When  the  resemblance 
is  more  than  a  resemblance,  when  it  is  rooted  in  the 
hidden  nature  of  things,  its  discernment  is  the  product 
of  imagination.  This  is  the  real  distinction  :  fancy 
detects   resemblances,    imagination    identities.'     Now  if 

191 


At  Monastery  Gates 

you  will  return  to  your  own  Religio  Poetce,  you  will 
see  of  what  I  accuse  you.  Masters  have  privileges,  I 
admit,  but  I  draw  the  line  at  looking  over  their  pupils' 
shoulders  various  odd  leagues  away. 

"To  be  serious;  your  little  book  stands  by  a  stream  of 
current  literature  like  Cleopatra's  Needle  by  the  dirt- 
eating  Thames. 

"  I  fear,  alas  !  it  will  not  receive  the  mysterious  hiero- 
glyph of  the  British  Artisan.     I  remain,  yours  sincerely, 

Francis  Thompson." 

And  a  little  later,  of  his  own  "Orient  Ode  "  : — 

"Dear  Mr.  Patmore, — I  shall  either  send  you  with 
this,  or  later,  a  small  poem  of  my  own  ;  not  for  its 
literary  merit,  but  because,  without  such  a  disclaimer, 
I  fear  you  would  think  I  had  been  the  first  to  find  your 

book  '  d d  good  to  steal  from.'     As  a  matter  of  fact, 

it  was  written  soon  after  Easter,  and  was  suggested 
by  passages  in  the  liturgies  of  Holy  Saturday,  some 
of  which — at  rather  appalling  length — I  have  quoted 
at  the  head  of  its  two  parts.  That  was  done  for  the 
sake  of  those  who  might  cavil  at  its  doctrines.  Indeed 
— with  superfluous  caution — I  intended  much  of  it  to  be 
sealed  ;  but  your  book  has  mainly  broken  the  seals  I 
had  put  upon  it.  There  is  quite  enough  in  it  of  yours, 
without  the  additional  presumption  that  I  had  hastened 
to  make  immediate  use  of  your  last  book.  As  far  as 
others  are  concerned,  it  must  rest  under  that  imputation 
to  which  the  frequent  coincidence  in  the  selection  of 
symbolism  —  as  an  example,  the  basing  of  a  whole 
passage  on  the  symbolic  meaning  of  the  West— very 
naturally  leads.  To  yourself  such  coincidence  is  ex- 
plicable,  it  will   not  be  to   '  outsiders.' — Yours  always, 

Francis  Thompson." 

And  later  : — 

"What  I  put  forth  as  a  bud  he  blew  out  and  it 
blossomed.     The  contact  of  our  ideas  was   dynamic  ; 

192 


Egyptian   Worship 

he  reverberated  my  idea  with  such  and  so  many  echoes 
that  it  returned  to  me  greater  than  I  gave  it  forth.  He 
opened  it  as  you  would  open  an  oyster,  or  placed  it 
under  a  microscope,  and  showed  me  what  it  contained." 

"Creccas  Cottage,  Pantasaph,  Tuesday. 

"  Dear  Mr.  Patmore, — The  poem,  even  if  I  am  to  take 
your  high  and  valued  praises  quite  literally,  has  a  defect 
of  which  you  must  be  conscious,  though  you  have 
courteously  refrained  from  noticing  it.  It  echoes  your 
own  manner  largely,  in  the  metre,  and  even  in  some  of 
the  diction — the  latter  a  thing  of  which,  I  think,  I  have 
seldom  before  rendered  myself  guilty. 

"  Now  it  is  possible  in  rare  cases  —  e.g.  Keats' 
'  Hyperion ' — for  an  echo  to  take  on  body  enough  to 
survive  as  literature.  But  even  should  my  poem  so 
survive  it  must  rest  under  the  drawback  of  being  no 
more  distinctive  Thompson  than  '  Hyperion '  is  dis- 
tinctive Keats. 

"With  regard  to  the  other  poem,  I  want  to  allude 
particularly  to  your  invaluable  correction  of  my  misuse 
of  the  Western  symbolism.  On  re-examination,  the 
whole  passage  discloses  a  confusion  of  thought  naturally 
causing  a  confusing  of  symbolism.  My  attention  was 
called  to  the  point  about  Egyptian  worship  by  a  footnote 
in  Dr.  Robert  Clarke's  '  Story  of  a  Conversion,'  in  Merry 
England}     I  at  once  perceived  its  symbolic  significance, 

1  On  this  subject,  and  the  derivation  of  portions  of  Ecclesiastes,  he  corre- 
sponded with  Fr.  Clarke.  The  contents  of  commonplace-books  of  a  somewhat 
early  period  suggest  a  taste  for  many  kindred  themes.  In  one  he  has  entered 
random  "Varia  on  Magic,"  accounts  of  and  comments  on  many  heresies, 
suspicions  of  the  Masons,  and  fears  of  a  Divine  Visitation  upon  the  general 
wickedness  in  the  shape  of  general  war  ;  with  these  are  important  notes  on 
Creation  Myths,  the  Chaldean  Genesis,  the  Egyptian  Crocodile,  the  Kabbalist 
Doctrine  of  the  Pre-existence  of  Souls  ;  some  symbols  connected  with  the 
Incarnation,  the  Lotus,  the  ritual  of  the  funeral  sacrifice,  with  transcriptions 
from  the  Book  of  Respirations,  the  Prayer  to  Ammon  A'a,  &c. ;  and  The 
meaning  of  Toaster,  a  cutting  scored  with  his  own  excursions  into  the  etymo- 
logy of  the  word — from  Ishtar,  the  Chaldsean  goddess — "And  Ishtar  I  take 
to  be  Ashak  Tar  (or  Tur)  the  Lady  of  the  Light  of  the  Way."  But  at  the 
turn  of  a  few  pages  he  is  found  enlarging  and  correcting.  Still  nearer  his 
real  concern  are  the  notes  on  varieties  of  the  Cross  symbol. 

193  N 


At  Monastery  Gates 

and  asked  myself  how  it  came  that  we  reckoned  our 
points  of  the  compass  facing  to  the  North.  The  only 
explanation  I  could  surmise  was  that  it  was  a  relic  of 
Set-worship  among  our  Saxon  ancestors.  Do  you  mean 
that  historically  men  have  prayed  in  three  distinct  periods 
to  W.,  E.,  and  N.  ? 

•  •••••• 

Always  yours, 

Francis  Thompson." 
C.  P.  to  F.  T. :— 

"  Lymington,  Hants,  September  10,  '95. 
"  My  dear  Thompson, — I  hope  I  have  not  kept  your  Poem 
too  long.  I  have  read  it  several  times,  and  found  it  quite  intel- 
ligible enough  for  song  which  is  also  prophecy.  We  are  upon 
very  much  the  same  lines,  but  you,  I  think,  are  more  advanced 
than  I  am.  '  Dieu  et  ma  Dame '  is  the  legend  of  both  of  us,  but 
at  present  Ma  Dame  is  too  much  for  the  balance,  peace,  and  purity 
of  my  religion.     There  is  too  much  of  heart-ache  in  it. 

"  I  have  ventured  to  affix  a  few  notes  of  interrogation  to  unusual 
modes  of  expression. 

"  I  hear,  from  Mrs.  Meynell,  that  Mr.  Meynell  is   with  you. 
Please  remember  me  very  kindly  to  him. — Yours  ever  truly, 

Coventry  Patmore. 

"  P.S. — The  world  has  worshipped  turning  to  the  West,  to  the 
East,  and  to  the  North.  The  '  New  Eve  '  is  the  South,  and,  when 
we  turn  thither,  all  things  will  be  renewed,  and  God  will  '  turn  our 
captivity  as  Rivers  in  the  South,'  and  we  shall  know  Him  in 
the  flesh  '  from  sea  to  sea.'  " 

He  later  explains  that  the  "  South  "  is  the  symbol  of 
Divine  Womanhood.  The  next  letter  from  Patmore, 
dated  a  month  later,  is  also  of  symbolism  : — 

"  I  wish  I  could  see  and  talk  to  you  on  the  subject  of  the  sym- 
bolism you  speak  of.  The  Bible  and  all  the  theologies  are  full  of 
it,  but  it  is  too  deep  and  significant  to  get  itself  uttered  in  writing. 
The  Psalms  especially  are  full  of  it.  On  the  matter  of  the  '  North  ' 
note  that  verse  :  '  Promotion  cometh  not  from  the  South,  nor  the 
East,  nor  the  West.'  That  is,  it  cometh  from  the  North.  The 
North  seems  always  to  signify  the  original  Godhead,  the  '  Father  ' 

194 


The  North 

— or  the  Devil.  For  the  same  symbol  is  used  in  the  Bible  and 
in  the  mythologies  for  either  extreme.1  '  Water/  for  example, 
is  constantly  used  for  the  sensible  nature  in  its  extreme  purity,  as 
in  the  Blessed  Virgin,  or  in  its  extreme  corruption.  This  honouring 
of  the  '  North '  may  very  likely  have  been  at  the  bottom  of  the 
seeking  of  the  points  of  the  compass  from  that  quarter. 

"  I  hope,  some  day,  to  see  and  have  speech  with  you  on  this 
and  other  matters.  Meantime  I  will  only  hint  that  the  North 
represents  the  simple  Divine  virility,  the  South  the  Divine  woman- 
hood,2 the  East  their  synthesis  in  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  the 
West  the  pure  natural  womanhood  '  full  of  grace.'  I  could  give 
you  no  end  of  proofs,  but  it  would  take  me  months  to  collect 
them,  from  all  I  have  read  and  forgotten." 

This  spacious  correspondence,  on  things  that  will  not 
"  get  themselves  uttered  in  writing,"  was,  nevertheless, 
continued.     F.  T.  writes  : — 

"  You  rather  overlook  the  purport  of  my  inquiry  in 
regard  to  the  symbolic  question.  I  wanted  to  know  if 
there  had  been  any  actual  progressive  development 
among  the  nations  with  regard  to  the  quarters  in  which 
they  worshipped — as  an  historic  fact,  apart  from  symbolic 
meaning.  But  this  is  such  a  minor  matter,  and  the 
concluding  hint  of  your  letter  contains  so  much  of  value 
to  me,  that  I  am  not  sorry  you  misapprehended  me.  Of 
course  I  am  quite  aware  that  it  is  impossible  to  answer 
openly — indeed  impossible  to  ask  openly — deeper  matters 
in  a  letter.  But  that  is  not  requisite  in  my  case.  It  is 
enough  that  my  gaze  should  be  set  in  the  necessary 
direction  ;  the  rest  may  be  safely  left  to  the  practised 
fixity  of  my  looking.     Indicative  longings  such   as  you 

1  In  a  poem  "  The  Schoolmaster  for  God,"  which  Francis  thought  just  not 
good  enough  to  put  into  a  volume,  he  represents  Satan  as  scaling  the  walls 
of  God's  garth,  stealing  the  seed,  and  giving  it  a  clandestine  growth,  which 
grew  to  fruit  that  made  men  who  ate  it  an-hungered  for  God.  And  in  this 
poem  Satan  is  named  "  that  Robber  from  the  North."  Again,  in  one  of 
the  "Ecclesiastical  Ballads,"  the  Veteran  of  Heaven  declares,  "  The  Prince 
I  drave  forth  held  the  Mount  of  the  North." 

2  See  F.  T.'s  poem  "  The  Newer  Eve,"  or  "  After  Woman,"  with  whom  the 
world  should  rise  instead  of  fall. 

195 


At  Monastery  Gates 

employed  in  your  letter,  you  may  safely  trust  me  to 
understand.  With  regard  to  what  you  say  about  the 
symbolism  of  the  North,  I  had  substantially  discerned 
for  myself.  Indeed  it  formed  part  of  a  little  essay  already 
written.  It  will  be  none  the  worse  for  the  corrobora- 
tion of  your  remarks  ;  there  is  always  something  in  your 
way  of  stating  even  what  is  already  to  me  a  res  visa, 
which  adds  sight  to  my  seeing.  The  quotation  from  the 
Psalms  is  new  and  grateful  to  me.  But  I  was  aware  of 
the  thing  to  which  it  points.  Shakespeare  speaks  of 
'The  lordly  monarch  of  the  North'  (I  was  confusing 
it  with  a  passage  in  Covins),  and  Butler  remarks — 

Cardan  believed  great  states  depend 
Upon  the  tip  o'  the  Bear's  tail's  end. 

"  Set  was  given  by  the  Egyptians  the  lordship  of 
temporal  powers ;  and  of  course  I  am  aware  of  the 
esoteric  meaning  of  this  and  of  Cardan's  saying — indeed 
this  was  what  I  intended  by  my  observation  that  I 
surmised  our  Northern  aspect  in  reckoning  the  compass 
to  be  a  relic  of  Set-worship  among  our  Teuton  ancestors  ; 
though  of  course  I  was  aware  that  Set,  by  that  name, 
was  an  Egyptian  deity. 

u  Also  I  am  familiar  with  the  principle  and  significance 
in  this  and  mythological  imagery  generally.  Indeed, 
without  the  knowledge  of  this  principle  both  Scripture 
and  the  mythologies  are  full  of  baffling  contradictions. 
When  I  began  seriously  to  consider  mythologies  com- 
paratively, I  cut  myself  with  the  broken  reed  on  which 
all  the  'scientific'  students  fall  back — this  significance 
belongs  to  an  earlier,  that  to  a  later,  development.  But 
having  eyes  which  '  scientific  '  students  have  not,  I  soon 
saw  that  fact  gave  me  the  lie  in  all  directions.  And  when 
I  came  to  make  a  comprehensive  study  of  the  Hebrew 
prophets,  with  the  Eastern  mythologies  in  mind,  I 
speedily  discovered  the  systematic  use  of  the  dual 
significance,  and  the  difficulty  vanished." 

196 


Perfection  beyond   Hope 

From  Coventry  Patmore  : — 

"  Thank  you  for  your  very  interesting  letter,  which  shows  me 
how  extraordinarily  alike  are  our  methods  of  and  experience  in 
contemplation.  .  .  . 

"  God  bless  and  help  you  to  bear  your  crown  of  thorns, 
and  to  prosper  in  the  great,  though  possibly  obscure,  career  He 
seems  to  have  marked  out  for  you  !  My  work,  such  as  it  is,  is 
done,  and  I  am  now  only  waiting,  somewhat  impatiently,  for  death, 
and  the  fulfilment  of  the  promises  of  God,  which  include  all 
that  we  have  ever  desired  here,  in  perfection  beyond  all  hope. — 
Yours,  C.  P." 


197 


CHAPTER    X:    MYSTICISM    AND 
IMAGINATION 

I  saw  Eternity  the  other  night, 

Like  a  great  ring  of  pure  and  endless  light. 

— Vaughan. 

I  look  to  you  to  crush  all  this  false  mysticism. 

— C.  P.  to  F.  T. 

Poems  of  "Sight  and  Insight,"  the  first  section  of  the 
new  book,  were  to  have  been  called  "  Mystical  Poems." 
But  the  word  mystical  was,  in  the  event,  abandoned. 
As  Catholic  and  thinker,  he  feared  association  with  a 
label  which  means  anything  from  mystification  to  "  re- 
fined and  luxurious  indolence  " — Mr.  Edward  Thomas's 
phrase  for  Maeterlinck's  "  Serres  Chaudes."  Unlike 
Thompson,  the  modern  mystic  shirks  the  rigid  necessi- 
ties of  mental  deportment.  Like  the  swimmer  who 
discards  half  his  nimble  faculties  with  his  tweeds  and 
lies,  without  swiftness  or  horizon,  beating  the  water 
with  heels  shaped  for  boots  and  the  road,  the  modern 
mystic  fancies  himself  a  better  man  out  of  his  element 
than  in  it. 

Even  while  the  false  mystic  hopes  to  keep  vacuity  at 
arm's  length,  shadows  press  closely.  His  school  is  of 
shadows  as  the  other  of  Light.  Maeterlinck,on  Mr.  Arthur 
Symons's  page  of  approval,  is  bidden  take  his  place  in 
the  gloomy  company.  tl  He  has  realised  how  immeasur- 
able is  the  darkness  out  of  which  he  has  just  stepped, 
and  the  darkness  into  which  we  are  about  to  pass.  And 
he  has  realised  how  the  thought  and  sense  of  that  two- 

198 


Morality   to   the   Nth   Power 


fold  darkness  invades  the  little  space  of  light,  in  which, 
for  a  moment,  we  move  ;  the  depth  in  which  they 
shadow  our  steps,  even  in  that  moment's  partial  escape." 
The  difference  is  not  of  words  only  ;  or  if  of  words  only, 
loose  thinking  or  slack  experience  is  abroad.  The  whole 
school  of  Catholic  mystics  insists,  in  opposition,  upon 
the  exterior  radiance  trailing  clouds  of  glory  as  they 
come  into  a  world  that  is  in  the  shadow,  whether  of 
God's  or  of  a  sinister  hand. 

Apart  altogether  from  Maeterlinck's  merits,  his  com- 
mentator's insistence  illustrates  the  temper  of  the 
'nineties.  It  is  mainly  the  artistic  value  of  his  mystic's 
sense  of  mystery  that  appeals  to  Mr.  Symons.  The 
void,  like  the  sheet-iron  which  makes  stage  thunder, 
has  specific  uses  ;  chunks  out  of  the  abyss  make  his 
scenery ;  for  his  most  effective  dialogue  he  borrows 
largely  from  silence.  Did  he  fight  his  way  into  the 
midst  of  mystery ;  did  he  cleave  it  with  revelation, 
or  morality,  its  artistic  uses  would  be  gone.  Darkness 
is  the  stronghold  of  such  interesting  emotions  as 
terror  —  "fear  shivers  through  these  plays."  "The 
mystic,  let  it  be  remembered,  has  nothing  in  common 
with  the  moralist,"  asserts  Mr.  Symons ;  on  the  con- 
trary, Francis  Thompson's  nearest  exponent  used 
the  definition,  "  Mysticism  is  morality  carried  to  the 
nth  power." 

Thompson's  wariness  about  the  word  marks  his 
respect  for  it.  Joan,  the  hearer  of  voices,  required  a 
clear  head  when  she  stood  her  trial  among  the  Theo- 
logians. Nor  was  the  poet  beguiled  into  the  un- 
orthodox. Compared  with  Meredith's  philosophy — an 
illumination,  it  is  true,  but  such  illumination  as  candles 
give  in  his  own  draughty  woods  of  Westermain — 
Thompson's  authority  is  steady  as  the  sheltered  lamp 
of  the  sanctuary. 

The  mysticism  that  Thompson  sought  to  avoid  was 
obscuration,  a  thickening  of  the  mental  atmosphere  by 

199 


Mysticism   and  Imagination 

stray  gleams,  like  the  thickening  of  the  air  in  a  dusty 
room  into  which  a  sun-ray  slants  obliquely.  The  mys- 
teries offer  an  excuse  for  confused  thinking ;  the  men 
and  women  who  discover  the  doctrine  of  unity  are 
lost  in  the  jungle  of  its  simplicity.  The  name  of  God, 
and  the  titles  of  His  attributes  must  set  the  generations 
groping  somewhat  blindly  if  they  carry  no  lantern  of 
authority,  or  if  the  names  of  God  and  His  attributes 
are  too  often  taken  into  the  babelling  languages  of 
empirics,  or  too  anxiously  conned. 

"  It  is  easy  for  a  man  to  know  God  if  he  does  not 
force  himself  to  define  Him"  is  a  saying  that  covers 
much  of  a  poet's  reticence.  For  Thompson  religion 
was  never  confusion  ;  his  mysteries  blurred  none  of  the 
common  issues ;  they  were  packed  as  carefully  as 
another  man's  title  deeds  ;  they  were,  he  would  have 
claimed,  tied  with  red  tape,  cut  from  the  cloth  of  the 
College  of  Cardinals. 

"He  is,"  said  Patmore,  "of  all  men  I  have  known 
most  naturally  a  Catholic.  My  Catholicism  was  ac- 
quired, his  inherent." 

Thompson  carried  his  demand  for  clarity  of  thought 
and  intention,  if  not  always  of  diction,  to  great 
lengths  :— 

"  A  little  common-sense,"  he  once  wrote  at  a  time  of 
slight  misunderstanding,  "  is  the  best  remedy — and  I  at 
least  mean  to  have  it " — a  brave  vaunt  for  a  poet,  but 
one  which  he  made  over  and  over  again  in  regard  to 
various  aspects  of  the  poetic  character.  "There  is 
something  wanting  in  genius  when  it  does  not  show 
a  clear  and  strong  vein  of  common-sense.  .  .  .  Dante, 
indeed,  is  a  perfect  rebuke  to  those  who  suppose  that 
mystical  genius,  at  any  rate,  must  be  dissociated  from 
common-sense.  Every  such  poet  should  be  able  to  give 
a  clear  and  logical  prose  resume  of  his  teaching,  as 
terse  as  a  page  of  scholastic  philosophy." 

200 


A  Recantation 

If  portions  of  New  Poems  prove  difficult  and  myste- 
rious, we  must  go  to  Patmore  for  the  defence  :  "  A  sys- 
tematic philosopher,  should  he  condescend  to  read  the 
following  notes  (Rod,  Root  and  Flower),  will  probably 
say,  with  a  little  girl  of  mine  to  whom  I  showed  the  stars 
for  the  first  time,  *  How  untidy  the  sky  is  !  ' " 

Mysticism,  as  F  T.  knew  it,  "  is  morality  carried  to 
the  nth  power."  Mysticism  —  "rational  mysticism" — 
has  been  defined  as  "  an  endeavour  to  find  God  at  first 
hand,  experimentally,  in  the  soul  herself  independently 
of  all  historical  and  philosophical  presuppositions." 
But  at  the  same  time  Von  Hiigel  condemns  the 
mysticism  that  is  self-sufficient ;  the  constitutional  and 
traditional  factors  are  essential  to  the  Church.  And 
the  religion  of  the  Church  is  not,  firstly,  an  affair 
between  the  God  and  the  man,  but  an  affair  between 
God  and  Man ;  is  not  an  affair  of  the  heart,  but  an 
affair  of  Love  ;  not  an  affair  of  the  brain,  but  of  Mind. 

That  "  to  the  Poet  life  is  full  of  visions,  to  the  Mystic 
it  is  one  vision " l  was  the  double  rule  of  Francis 
Thompson's  practice.  Having  regarded  the  visions 
and  set  them  down,  he  would,  in  another  capacity, 
call  them  in.  The  Vision  enfolded  them  all.  Thus, 
not  long  after  it  was  written,  he  cancels  even  the 
"Orient  Ode,"  2  and  recants  "  his  bright  sciential  idolatry," 
even  though  he  had  religiously  adapted  it  to  the 
greater  glory  of  God  before  it  was  half  confessed. 
"The  Anthem  of  Earth"  and  the  "Ode  to  the  Setting 
Sun  "  would  also  come  under  the  censorship  of  his 
anxious  orthodoxy,  to  be  in  part  condemned.  What 
profiteth  it  a  man,  he  asks  in  effect,  if  he  gain  the 
whole  sun  but  lose  the  true  Orient — Christ  ? 


1  Mr.  Albert  Cock  in  the  Dublin  Review. 

2  The  ending  of  the  "Orient  Ode"  seems,  in  the  frank  exultation  of  its 
creed,  to  be  unveiled  and  native  pronouncement,  as  loud  in  its  faith  as  the 
last  line  of  Patmore's  "  Faint  yet  Pursuing,"  where  he  ends  by  "hearing  the 
winds  their  Maker  magnify." 

201 


Mysticism  and  Imagination 

He  came,  even  to  the  point  of  silence  in  certain  moods, 
to  feel  the  futility  of  all  writings  save  such  as  were  ex- 
plicitly a  confession  of  faith  ;  and  also  of  faithfulness 
to  the  institutional  side  of  religion — the  Church  and  the 
organised  means  of  grace.  "  The  sanity  of  his  mysticism," 
says  one  commentator,  "  is  the  great  value  to  the  present 
generation.  A  high  individual  experiencing  of  purga- 
tion, illumination,  and  union,  a  quiet  constancy  in  the 
corporate  life,  and  discipleship  as  well  as  leadership  ; 
what  combination  more  needed  than  this  for  our  '  un- 
courageous  day  '  ?  " 

The  poet  is  a  priest  who  has  no  menial  and  earthly 
service.  He  has  no  parish  to  reconcile  with  paradise,  no 
spire  that  must  reach  heaven  from  suburban  foundations. 
The  priest  puts  his  very  hand  to  the  task  of  uniting  the 
rational  and  communal  factors  of  religion  with  the 
mystical.  The  altar-rail  is  the  sudden  and  meagre 
boundary  line  between  two  worlds  ;  he  holds  in  his 
hand  a  Birmingham  monstrance,  and  the  monstrance 
holds  the  Host.  He  has  no  time  to  shake  the  dust  of 
the  street  from  his  shoes  before  he  treads  the  sanctuary. 
His  symbolism  is  put  to  the  wear  and  tear  of  daily  use. 
As  a  middle-man  in  the  commerce  of  souls,  as  the  servant 
of  the  rational  sides  of  the  Church,  tried  by  the  forlorn 
circumstances  of  never-ceasing  work,  he  may  find  him- 
self shut  out  from  the  more  purely  mystical  regions  of 
his  communion.  To  correct  or  amplify  his  religious 
experience,  there  are  the  enclosed  Orders,  the  contempla- 
tives  of  the  Church.  But  to  them,  too,  there  must  be 
complementary  religious  experience.  They  notch  off 
the  sum  or  score  of  the  Church's  experience,  so  that 
it  may  never  be  allowed  to  recede.  It  is  left  to  the  poet 
to  prophesy  or  spy  upon  the  increase  of  Wisdom  and 
the  multiplication  of  the  Word. 

He,  too,  in  so  far  as  he  writes,  is  circumscribed  by  the 
uses  of  the  world.  The  priest's  ministry  in  infinitudes 
is  bounded  by  his  parish  ;    the  poet's  by  his  language. 


202 


The  Master-Key 

And  if  religion  is  rightly  denned  as  something  more  than 
communion  between  the  man  and  the  Almighty,  as  being 
besides  the  communion  between  man  and  man,  and  the 
sum  of  Mankind  and  the  Almighty,  then  the  poet  is  the 
immediate  servant  of  God  and  Man. 

Transfiguration  is  for  Thompson  the  most  familiar 
of  mysteries.  Good  faith  needs  no  Burning  Bush.  Or, 
rather,  for  the  faithful  every  bush  is  alight.  For 
this  faithful  poet  the  seasons  were  full  of  the  promise 
of  Resurrection.     In  spring  he  calls 

Hark  to  the  Jubilate  of  the  bird 

For  them  that  found  the  dying  way  to  life  ! 

The  rebirth  of  the  earth  after  winter  is  the  figure  of 
the  future  life  : 

Thou  wak'st,  0  Earth, 

And  work'st  from  change  to  change  and  birth  to  birth 

Creation  old  as  hope,  and  new  as  sight. 


and- 


All  the  springs  are  flash-lights  of  one  Spring. 


In  the  same  poem  he  is  seen  at  his  daily  business, 
the  routine  work  of  co-ordinating  and  synthesising. 
Light — the  light  of  the  sun — is  also 

Light  to  the  sentient  closeness  of  the  breast, 
Light  to  the  secret  chambers  of  the  brain  ! 

Arguments  that  go  from  heaven  downwards  are  the 
commonplaces  of  his  poetry ;  that  he  was  ready  to 
prove  the  sum  of  his  wisdom  from  earth  upwards  is 
told  in  a  passage  of  his  prose  : — 

"  If  the  Trinity  were  not  revealed,  I  should  neverthe- 
less be  induced  to  suspect  the  existence  of  such  a 
master-key  by  the  trinities  through  which  expounds 
itself  the  spirit  of   man.     Such   a  trinity  is   the  trinity 

203 


Mysticism  and   Imagination 

of  beauty — Poetry,  Art,  Music.  Although  its  office  is 
to  create  beauty  I  call  it  the  trinity  of  beauty,  because 
it  is  the  property  of  earthly  as  of  the  heavenly  beauty 
to  create  everything  to  its  own  image  and  likeness. 
Painting  is  the  eye  of  Passion,  Poetry  is  the  voice  of 
Passion,  Music  is  the  throbbing  of  her  heart.  For  all 
beauty  is  passionate,  though  it  be  a  passionless  passion 
.  .  .  Absolutely  are  these  three  the  distinct  manifesta- 
tions of  a  single  essence." 

He  had  found  another  analogy  in  Pico  della  Miran- 
dola,  whom  he  thus  renders  : — 

"  '  The  universe  consists  of  three  worlds — the  earthly, 
the  heavenly  (the  sun  and  stars),  and  the  super-heavenly 
(the  governing  Divine  influences).  The  same  pheno- 
mena belong  to  each,  but  each  have  different  grades 
of  manifestation.  Thus  the  physical  element  of  fire 
exists  in  the  earthly  sphere  ;  the  warmth  of  the  sun  in 
the  heavenly ;  and  a  seraphic,  spiritual  fire  in  the 
empyrean ;  the  first  burns,  the  second  quickens,  the 
third  loves.'  Says  Pico  '  In  addition  to  these  three  worlds 
(the  macrocosm),  there  is  a  fourth  (the  microcosm) 
containing  all  embraced  within  them.  This  is  Man, 
in  whom  are  included  a  body  formed  of  the  elements, 
a  heavenly  spirit,  reason,  an  angelic  soul,  and  a  re- 
semblance to  God.'  " 

"  There  is  one  reason  for  human  confusion  which  is 
nearly  always  ignored.  The  world — the  universe — is  a 
fallen  world.  .  .  .  That  should  be  precisely  the  function 
of  poetry — to  see  and  restore  the  Divine  idea  of  things, 
freed  from  the  disfiguring  accidents  of  their  Fall — that 
is  what  the  Ideal  really  is,  or  should  be.  .  .  .  But  of  how 
many  poets  can  this  truly  be  said  ?  That  gift  also  is 
among  the  countless  gifts  we  waste  and  pervert ;  and 
surely  not  the  least  heavy  we  must  render  is  the  account 
of  its  stewardship." 

204 


"Nature  has  no  Heart" 

"To  be  the  poet  of  the  return  to  Nature,"  Thompson 
continues,  "is  somewhat;  but  I  would  be  the  poet  of 
the  return  to  God."  He  was  the  accuser  of  Nature. 
He  did  not  say 

By  Grace  divine, 

Not  otherwise,  Oh  Nature  !  are  we  thine, 

but  rather  that  by  divine  Grace  Nature  may  be  Man's, 
that  he  can  go  through  it  to  his  desire.  Shut  the  gates 
of  it  and  it  is  a  cruel  and  obdurate  abundance  of  clay, 
of  earthworks. 

"  Nature  has  no  heart.  .  .  .  Did  I  go  up  to  yonder 
hill,"  he  writes,  "and  behold  at  my  feet  the  spacious 
amphitheatre  of  hill-girt  wood  and  mead,  overhead  the 
mighty  aerial  velariumy  I  should  feel  that  my  human  sad- 
ness was  a  higher  and  deeper  and  wider  thing  than  all." 
"The  Hound  of  Heaven"  is  full  of  the  inadequacy  of 
Nature.  She  "  speaks  by  silences  "  ;  the  sea  is  salt  un- 
wittingly and  unregretfully.  F.  T.  quotes  Coleridge, 
who,  he  says,  speaks  "  not  as  Wordsworth  had  taught 
him  to  speak,  but  from  his  own  bitter  experience  "  : — 

0  Lady,  we  receive  but  what  we  give, 
And  in  our  life  alone  doth  Nature  live  ; 

Ours  is  her  wedding  garment,  ours  her  shroud  ! 

1  may  not  hope  from  outward  forms  to  win 

The  glory  and  the  joy  whose  fountains  are  within. 

It  is  at  this  point  that  F.  T.  strides  from  his  fellows. 
He  is  not  content  with  others'  praise  or  overblame 
of  Nature.  She  is  dumb  and  hopeless,  a  confusion  to 
thought.  She  tangles  Meredith's  verse  and  leaves  Shelley 
drowned  in  body,  stifled  among  clouds.  Thompson 
draws  away  from  the  Pantheist  and  the  Pagan.  Cole- 
ridge's words  are  true  of  Nature's  relation  to  ourselves — 
"not  the  truth  with  regard  to  Nature  absolutely.  Absolute 
Nature  lives  not  in  our  life,  nor  yet  is  lifeless,  but  lives 

205 


Mysticism  and   Imagination 

in  the  life  of  God  ;  and  in  so  far,  and  so  far  merely, 
as  man  himself  lives  in  that  life,  does  he  come  into 
sympathy  with  Nature,  and  Nature  with  him.  She  is 
God's  daughter  who  stretches  her  hand  only  to  her 
Father's  friends.  Not  Shelley,  not  Wordsworth  himself, 
ever  drew  so  close  to  the  heart  of  Nature  as  did  the 
Seraph  of  Assisi,  who  was  close  to  the  Heart  of  God." 

There,  again,  the  complete  reasonableness  and  sincerity 
of  his  poetry  is  put  to  the  test  of  his  prose.  It  is  as 
if  another  and  most  essential  witness  vouched  for  the 
wisdom  of  "The  Hound  of  Heaven" — a  witness  who, 
after  focussing  the  different  vision  of  a  different  art 
upon  the  same  experience,  swore  to  the  same  truth.  He 
continues  : — 

"Yet  higher,  yet  further  let  us  go.  Is  this  daughter 
of  God  mortal  ?  can  her  foot  not  pass  the  grave  ?  Is 
Nature,  as  men  tell  us, 

...  a  fold 
Of  Heaven  and  earth  across  His  Face, 

which  we  must  rend  to  behold  that  Face  ?  Do  our  eyes 
indeed  close  for  ever  on  the  beauty  of  earth  when 
they  open  on  the  beauty  of  Heaven  ?  I  think  not  so  ; 
I  would  fain  beguile  even  death  itself  with  a  sweet 
fantasy.  ...  I  believe  that  in  Heaven  is  earth.  Plato's 
doctrine  of  Ideals,  as  I  conceive,  laid  its  hand  upon  the 
very  breast  of  truth,  yet  missed  her  breathing.  For 
beauty — such  is  my  faith — is  beauty  for  eternity." 

The  faith  of  "  In  Heaven,  is  Earth  "  is  but  a  tentative 
expression  of  his  later  gospel.  At  first  he  had  been 
alarmed  at  the  theory — in  the  form  in  which  it  had 
reached  him — of  the  survival  of  earthly  love  in  Heaven. 
He  had  not  then  read  Patmore  or  Swedenborc.  Even 
the  tentative  belief  is  timidly  qualified  : — 

"  Earthly  beauty  is  but  heavenly  beauty  taking  to  itself 
flesh.    .    .    .    Within    the    Spirit    Who    is    Heaven    lies 

206 


The  Image-maker 


Earth  ;  for  within  Him  rests  the  great  conception  of 
Creation  .  .  . 

Yet  there  the  soul  shall  enter  which  hath  earned 
That  privilege  by  virtue.  .  .  . 

As  one  man  is  more  able  than  his  fellows  to  enter  into 
another's  mind,  so  in  proportion  as  each  of  us  by  virtue 
has  become  kin  to  God,  will  he  penetrate  the  Supreme 
Spirit,  and  identify  himself  with  the  Divine  Ideals. 
There  is  the  immortal  Sicily,  there  the  Elysian  Fields, 
there  all  visions,  all  fairness  engirdled  with  the  Eternal 
Fair.     This,  my  faith,  is  laid  up  in  my  bosom." 

His  belief  here  lies  close  to  Swedenborg,  whose  Con- 
jugial  Love  F.  T.  borrowed  from  my  shelves  with  an 
eagerness  evinced  for  no  other  book  there. 

At  every  turn  he  is  the  devoted,  intentest,  faithfullest 
interpreter  of  the  material  world.  All  his  "copy" 
awaited  him  in  nature ;  his  translations  from  her 
tangible  writings  bear  on  every  page  the  imprimatur  of 
his  faith.  The  generality  of  the  revelation  made  to  them 
did  not  spoil  his  appetite  nor  blur  his  surprising  genius 
for  detail. 

His  couplings  of  the  great  and  the  small,  not  always 
so  sweetly  reasonable  as  that  set  between  the  flower 
and  the  star,  sometimes  need  apology.  The  whole  scale 
of  comparisons  is  unexpected  in  the  case  of  one  who 
goes  to  the  eating-house  not  only  for  his  meals,  but  for 
his  images  ;  who  finds  nothing  outrageous  in  naming 
the  Milky  Way  a  beaten  yolk  of  stars  ;  who  takes  the 
setting  sun  for  a  bee  that  stings  the  west  to  angry 
red ;  and,  when  he  would  express  the  effect  of  an 
oppressive  sunset  upon  Tom  o'  Bedlam's  eye,  who  casts 
about  in  the  lumber-room  of  memory  which  had  been 
filled  with  oppressive  images  during  nights  endured 
in  a  common  lodging-house. 

Even  then  he  was  only  expressing,  out  of  a  set  of 

207 


Mysticism   and   Imagination 

accidental  impressions,  the  poet's  unremitting  desire 
to  link  up  the  sights  and  sensations  of  the  universe. 
Drummond  of  Hawthornden's 

Night  like  a  drunkard  reels 
Beyond  the  hills 

may  serve  as  a  typical  instance  of  such  arbitrary  simile. 
From  the  note-books  I  take  these  unpublished  lines  : — 

Dost  thou  perceive  no  God  within  the  frog  ? 

O  poor,  poor  Soul  ! 
Bristles  and  rankness  only  in  the  hog  ? 

O  wretched  dole  ! 
No  wry'd  beneficence  in  the  fever's  germ  ? 
Nor  any  Heaven  shut  within  the  worm  ? 

Dost  shudder  daintily 
At  words,  in  song,  shaped  so  un-lovelily  ? 

To  school,  to  school  ! 
For  does  it  to  thee  seem 
That  God  in  an  ill  dream 
Fashioned  the  twisted  horrors  of  the  standing  pool  ? 

Mr.  Chesterton  surmises  the  mountainous  significance 
of  minute  things.  In  Tremendous  Trifles,  like  the  lover 
who  writes  an  ode  to  his  lady's  eyebrow,  or  the  professor 
who  gives  his  life  to  the  study  of  the  capillary  glands, 
he  delights  in  disproportion.  When  Mr.  Chesterton 
planned  a  volume  of  poems  on  the  things  in  his  pocket, 
but  desisted  because  the  volume  would  have  bulked  too 
large,  he  was  only  formulating,  in  a  manner  acceptable  to 
the  man  who  puts  his  hand  in  his  pocket  for  a  half- 
penny, the  old  "  religio  poetae."  The  things  of  the 
pocket  constitute  a  pocket  dictionary  in  more  than  two 
languages,  a  book  of  synonyms,  a  lexicon  filled  with  cross 
references,  all  based  upon  the  Word.  The  silly  silver 
of  men's  purses  is  blessed,  and  every  mortal  thing 
assists  in  immortal  liturgy.  St.  Charles  was  of  one 
mind  with  those  who  sing  the  Magnificat  of  trifles. 
When  asked  how  he  would  die,  he  answered  :  "  Playing 

208 


Words  and  the  Word 

cards,  as  I  now  do,  if  it  should  so  chance."  Whenever 
such  an  one  dies  he  holds  trumps.  And  like  the  priest, 
the  poet  touches  mysteries  with  his  very  hand  ;  he  makes 
daily  communion.  "To  some,"  says  Patmore,  "there 
is  revealed  a  sacrament  greater  than  that  of  the  Real 
Presence,  a  sacrament  of  the  Manifest  Presence,  which 
is,  and  is  more  than,  the  sum  of  all  the  sacraments." 
And  again  we  have  Thompson's  own 

In  thee,  Queen,  man  is  saturate  in  God. 

The  Psalmist  is  with  him  : — 

"  If  I  climb  up  into  heaven  thou  art  there,  if  I  go  down  into 
hell,  thou  art  there  also.  If  I  take  the  wings  of  the  morning  and 
remain  in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  sea ;  even  there  also  shall 
thy  hand  lead  me  and  thy  right  hand  shall  hold  me.  If  I  say 
peradventure  the  darkness  shall  cover  me :  then  shall  my  night 
be  turned  into  day ;  the  darkness  and  light  to  thee  are  both 
alike." 

Thompson's  own 

.  .  .  Nay,  I  affirm 
Nature  is  whole  in  her  least  things  exprest 

is  a  splendid  justification  of  the  poet's  dalliance  with 
trifles.  Vaughan  confines  Eternity  in  the  scope  of  a 
night,  a  ring — nay,  a  couplet  : — 

I  saw  Eternity  the  other  night, 

Like  a  great  ring  of  pure  and  endless  light. 

In  a  couplet,  or  a  letter,  literature  performs  her 
miracles.  Christina  Rossetti  told  Katharine  Tynan 
that  she  never  stepped  on  a  scrap  of  torn  paper,  but 
lifted  it  out  of  the  mud  lest  perhaps  it  should  have  the 
Holy  Name  written  or  printed  upon  it.  That  is  an 
attitude  towards  literature,  towards  words  and  the  Word, 
not  unlike  Francis  Thompson's. 

209  O 


Mysticism  and   Imagination 

In  the  "  Orient  Ode  "  he  has  addressed  the  sun  : — 

Not  unto  thee,  great  Image,  not  to  thee 

Did  the  wise  heathen  bend  an  idle  knee  ; 

And  in  an  age  of  faith  grown  frore 

If  I  too  shall  adore, 

Be  it  accounted  unto  me 

A  bright  sciential  idolatry  ! 

God  has  given  thee  visible  thunders 

To  utter  thine  apocalypse  of  wonders  ; 

And  what  want  I  of  prophecy, 

That  at  the  sounding  from  thy  station 

Of  thy  flagrant  trumpet,  see 

The  seals  that  melt,  the  open  revelation  ? 

Or  who  a  God-persuading  angel  needs, 

That  only  heeds 

The  rhetoric  of  thy  burning  deeds  ? 

Lo,  of  thy  Magians  I  the  least 
Haste  with  my  gold,  my  incenses  and  myrrhs, 
To  thy  desired  epiphany,  from  the  spiced 
Regions  and  odorous  of  Song's  traded  East. 
Thou,  for  the  life  of  all  that  live 
The  victim  daily  born  and  sacrificed  ; 
To  whom  the  pinion  of  this  longing  verse 
Beats  but  with  fire  which  first  thyself  did  give, 
To  thee,  0  Sun — or  is't  perchance,  to  Christ  ? 

Ay,  if  men  say  that  on  all  high  heaven's  face 
The  saintly  signs  I  trace 

Which  round  my  stoled  altars  hold  their  solemn  place, 
Amen,  amen  !    For  oh,  how  could  it  be, — 
When  I  with  winged  feet  had  run 
Through  all  the  windy  earth  about, 
Quested  its  secret  of  the  sun, 
And  heard  what  thing  the  stars  together  shout, — 
I  should  not  heed  thereout 
Consenting  counsel  won  : — 
"  By  this,  0  Singer,  know  we  if  thou  see. 
When  men  shall  say  to  thee  :  Lo  !  Christ  is  here, 
When  men  shall  say  to  thee  :  Lo  !  Christ  is  there, 
Believe  them  :  yea,  and  this — then  art  thou  seer, 
When  all  thy  crying  clear 

Is  but :  Lo  here  !  lo  there  ! — ah  me,  lo  everywhere  ! " 

210 


"A  Type   Memorial" 

Nature's  shrines  he  had  visited,  but  unavailingly  :■ 

Nature,  poor  stepdame,  cannot  slake  my  drouth. 

He  cries  to  the  sun  : — 

I  know  not  what  strange  passion  bows  my  head 
To  thee,  whose  great  command  upon  my  veins 
Proves  thee  a  god  for  me  not  dead,  not  dead  ! 


He  cries  it  to  the  sun,  but  only  in  the  prelude  to  an  ode 
that  ends  with  the  Cross. 
His  songs  of  Nature  are  : — 

Sweet  with  wild  wings  that  pass,  that  pass  away. 

All  his  wild  things  passed,  that  they  might  be  garnered 
in  heaven.  The  chase  of  the  "  Hound  of  Heaven  "  ends 
in  a  divine  embrace ;  like  that  ending  is  the  ending  of 
all  his  verse. 

Through  the  symbolism  of  the  sun  all  things  were 
brought  into  line.  Likened  to  the  Host,  with  sky  for 
monstrance  ;  to  the  Christ,  with  the  sombre  line  of  the 
horizon  for  Rood  ;  to  the  Altar-Wafer,  and  signed  with 
the  Cross  ;  the  Sun  is  to  the  Earth  only  what  Christ  is 
to  the  Soul  : — 

Thou  to  thy  spousal  universe 

Art  Husband,  she  thy  Wife  and  Church. 

Thompson  offers  his  inspiration — " ...  to  thee,  O  Sun, 
— or  is't  perchance,  to  Christ  ?  "  x 

He  would  not  have  his  harmonies  mistaken  for  the 
repetition  of  "  fair  ancient  flatteries."  He  takes  the 
sun,  at  rising  and  at  setting,  as  "a  type  memorial"2 : — 

Like  Him  thou  hang'st  in  dreadful  pomp  of  blood 
Upon  thy  Western  rood  ; 

1  "The  sun  is  the  type  of  Christ,  giving  life  with  its  proper  blood  to  the 
earth,"  is  Mr.  Edmund  Gardner's  concise  statement  of  F.  T.'s  meaning. 

2  F.  T.  had  a  theory  of  the  solar  existence  that  did  not  stop  short,  with 
Science,  at  the  measurement  of  gases  and  their  density.  "  It  has,"  Mr.  Ghosh 
tells  me  he  said,  "a  life  of  its  own,  analogous  to  the  life  of  the  heart,  periodic 
in  its  manifestations  and — ,"  but  here  Francis  stopped.     "To  Western  ears  it 

211 


Mysticism  and   Imagination 

And  His  stained  brow  did  vail  like  thine  to-night, 

Yet  lift  once  more  Its  light, 
And,  risen,  again  departed  from  our  ball, 
But  when  It  set  on  earth  arose  in  Heaven. 

And  in  the  After-Strain  : — 

Even  so,  O  Cross  !  thine  is  the  victory. 

Thy  roots  are  fast  within  our  fairest  fields  ; 
Brightness  may  emanate  in  Heaven  from  thee, 

Here  thy  dread  symbol  only  shadow  yields. 

Of  reaped  joys  thou  art  the  heavy  sheaf 

Which  must  be  lifted,  though  the  reaper  groan  ; 

Yea,  we  may  cry  till  Heaven's  great  ear  be  deaf, 
But  we  must  bear  thee,  amd  must  bear  alone. 

Vain  were  a  Simon  ;  of  the  Antipodes 

Our  night  not  borrows  the  superfluous  day. 

Yet  woe  to  him  that  from  his  burden  flees  ! 
Crushed  in  the  fall  of  what  he  cast  away.  x 

He  went  farther  :  he  made  the  sun  the  type  of  a  church 
service  : — 

Lo,  in  the  sanctuaried  East, 

Day,  a  dedicated  priest 

In  all  his  robes  pontifical  exprest, 

Lifteth  slowly,  lifteth  sweetly, 

From  out  its  Orient  tabernacle  drawn, 

Yon  orbed  sacrament  contest 

Which  sprinkles  benediction  through  the  dawn  ; 

And  when  the  grave  procession's  ceased, 

will  sound  ridiculous,"  he  said,  and  was  silent.  In  vain  Mr.  Sarath  Kumar 
Ghosh  asserted  his  own  Eastern  aptitude  for  such  speculation.  Francis 
grimly  repeated  his  excommunication,  and  Mr.  Ghosh,  conscious  of  a  frock- 
coat  and  a  great  command  of  the  English  idiom,  was  half-convinced  of  its 
stness. 

1  Compare  Donne's  "  No  cross  is  so  extreme,  as  to  have  none" — a  thought 
upon  which  many  paradoxical  couplets  were  turned  in  the  seventeenth  century. 
But  Donne  goes  a  little  further  than  his  fellows.  He  seems  to  have  known 
that  an  image,  bound  up  with  its  original,  is  more  than  a  likeness : — 

Let  crosses  so  take  what  hid  Christ  in  thee  ; 

And  be  His  image,  or  not  His,  but  He. 

212 


The  Cross 

The  earth  with  due  illustrious  rite 

Blessed, — ere  the  frail  fingers  featly 

Of  twilight,  violet-cassocked  acolyte 

His  sacerdotal  stoles  unvest — 

Sets,  for  high  close  of  the  mysterious  feast, 

The  sun  in  august  exposition  meetly 

Within  the  flaming  monstrance  of  the  West. 

0  salutaris  hostia, 

Quce  coeli  pandis  ostium  ! 

The  Cross  spread  its  arms  across  his  world.  It  was 
never  heavier  on  his  shoulder  than  when  he  copied 
out  Donne's  lines  : — 

Who  can  deny  me  power  and  liberty 
To  stretch  mine  arms  and  mine  own  cross  to  be  ? 
Swim,  and  at  every  stroke  thou  art  thy  cross  : 
The  mast  and  yard  make  one  where  seas  do  toss. 
Look  down,  thou  spiest  our  crosses  in  small  things, 
Look  up,  thou  seest  birds  raised  on  crossed  wings. 

Donne  had  encouraged  him  in  his  own  early  search 
for  its  symbols.  In  a  prayer  to  the  Blessed  Virgin 
Thompson  speaks  of  the  general  crucifixion  of  man  : — 

0  thou,  who  standest  as  thou  hast  ever  stood 
Beside  the  Cross,  whenas  it  shall  be  said — 

"  It  is  consummated," 
Receive  us,  taken  from  the  World's  rough  wood  ! 

But  Donne's  image  is  the  more  immediate ;  and  the 
"  Veneration  of  Images,"  of  a  living  poet,  in  which  man 
is  addressed  as — 

Thou  Rood  of  every  day — 

confirms  both  their  guesses. 

In  his  sunset  Thompson  found  a  symbol  of  the 
Crucifixion  ;  in  Paganism  his  Calvary,  and  in  Christianity 
an  endless  elaboration  of  Christ,  so  that  he  turns  and 

213 


Mysticism  and   Imagination 

wonders  at   himself  for  standing  at  all  in  the  mirk  of 
ordinary  daylight : — 

And  though  the  cry  of  stars 

Give  tongue  before  His  way 

Goldenly,  as  I  say, 

And  each,  from  wide  Saturnus  to  hot  Mars, 

He  calleth  by  its  name, 

Lest  that  its  bright  feet  stray  ; 

And  thou  have  lore  of  all, — 

But  to  thine  own  Sun's  call 

Thy  path  disorbed  hath  never  wit  to  tame  : 

It  profits  not  withal, 

And  my  rede  is  but  lame. 

He  regards  his  poetry,  the  poetry  of  unrevealed 
religion,  of  inquiry,  and  of  hasty  worship,  even  as  he 
writes  it,  with  some  disfavour.  But  the  prophetical 
portion  of  New  Poems  shows  a  new  assurance — 

I  have  my  music  bent 

To  waste  on  bootless  things  its  skiey-gendered  rain  : 

Yet  shall  a  wiser  day 

Fulfil  more  heavenly  way, 

And  with  approved  music  clear  this  slip, 

I  trust  in  God  most  sweet. 

Meantime  the  silent  lip, 

Meantime  the  climbing  feet. 

He  saw  only  one  possible  ending  to  all  modes  of 
poetry,  that  "multitudinous-single  thing": — 

Loud  the  descant,  and  low  the  theme, 

(A  million  songs  are  as  song  of  one) 
And  the  dream  of  the  world  is  dream  in  dream, 
But  the  one  Is  is,  or  nought  could  seem ; 

And  the  song  runs  round  to  the  song  begun. 

This  is  the  song  the  stars  sing, 

(  Toned  all  in  time) 
Tintinnabulous,  tuned  to  ring 
A  multitudinous-single  thing 

(Rung  all  in  rhyme). 

214 


The   Unit  and  the   Sum 

In  "  Form  and  Formalism  "  Thompson  says  : — 

"  No  common  aim  can  triumph,  till  it  is  crystallized  in 
an  individual.  Man  himself  must  become  incarnate  in  a 
man  before  his  cause  can  triumph.  Thus  the  universal 
Word  became  the  individual  Christ ;  that  total  God  and 
total  man  being  particularised  in  a  single  symbol,  the 
cause  of  God  and  man  might  triumph.  In  Christ, 
therefore,  centres  and  is  solved  that  supreme  problem 
of  life — the  marriage  of  the  Unit  with  the  Sum.  In 
Him  is  perfectly  shown  forth  the  All  for  one,  and  One 
for  all,  which  is  the  justificatory  essence  of  that  sub- 
stance we  call  Kingship.  .  .  .  When  the  new  heavens 
and  the  new  earth,  which  multitudinous  Titans  are  so 
restlessly  forging,  at  length  stand  visible  to  resting 
man,  it  needs  no  prophecy  to  foretell  that  they  will 
be  like  the  old,  with  head,  and  form,  and  hierarchic 
memberment,  as  the  six-foot  bracken  is  like  the  bracken 
at  your  knee.  For  out  of  all  its  disintegrations  and  con- 
fusion earth  emerges,  like  a  strong  though  buffeted 
swimmer,  nearer  to  the  unseen  model  and  term  of  all 
social  growth ;  which  is  the  civil  constitution  of  angeldom, 
and  the  Uranian  statecraft  of  imperatorial  God." 


"  Ritual  is  poetry  addressed  to  the  eye,"  he  notes. 
The  corollary  of  which  supports  his  belief  that  poetry 
was  an  affair  of  ritual — or  images. 

Imagination  is  the  sense  or  science  that  discovers 
identities  and  correspondences,  while  fancy  takes  a 
lower  place  because,  said  Thompson,  it  discovers  only 
likenesses.  Imagination  discerns  similarity  rooted  or 
enskied ;  it  is  the  origin  of  the  symbolism  that  may 
be  traced  back  to  the  heart  of  the  truths  and  mysteries 
to  which  it  supplies  the  outward  shows.  Imagina- 
tion   is   the    spring  ;    Symbolism    is    here    the   manifes- 

215 


Mysticism  and   Imagination 

tation  of  Imagination,  is  the  identity-bearer,  partaking 
of  the  very  essence  of  the  Divinity.  The  Symbols  of 
Divinity  are  Divine  ;  flesh  is  the  Word  made  flesh  ;  the 
Eucharist  is  the  true  Presence  ;  and  Christ  is  Himself 
the  Way  to  Christ.  Thompson's  poetry  and  theology 
abode  by  the  Image ;  it  was  no  necessity  of  their  nature 
to  penetrate  beyond  the  barriers  of  expression  and 
revelation.  The  go-betweens  of  others  were  his  essentials. 
Holding  so  grave  an  estimate  of  the  functions  of  the 
imagination,  he  found  in  poetry  the  highest  human 
scope  and  motive. 

Another  writer  has  said — 

"  Imagination  is  as  the  water  that  reflects  clouds  out  of  sight, 
or  so  near  the  sun  that  they  may  not  be  viewed  save  in  the  darken- 
ing mirror." 

And  images  enlarge  and  qualify ;  they  create,  too,  in 
so  far  as  they  bear  and  nourish  thoughts  that  can  only 
be  expressed  through  them.  They  belong,  F.  T.  main- 
tained, to  the  highest  poetry,  the  poetry  of  revelation 
and  the  intellect.  In  this  idea  he  was  confirmed  ;  for 
its  sake  he  surmounted  the  opposition  of  the  thinker  in 
poetry  to  whom  he  was  most  dutiful  in  admiration. 
"It  is  false,"  he  declared  with  his  whole  heart,  "that 
highest  or  supremest  poetry  is  stripped  of  figure. 
Purely  emotional  poetry  at  its  height  is  bare  of  imagery, 
not  poetry  of  supremest  flight.  .  .  .  Supreme  emotion  is 
not  supreme  poetry."  And  yet  just  in  its  own  measure 
is  the  estimate  he  contested.  It  is  set  forth  by  A.  M.  in 
the  Nation,  23  Nov.,  1907  : — 

"  Imagery  is  not,  it  may  be  held,  the  last,  or  inmost,  word  of 
poetry.  There  is  a  simplicity  on  the  yonder  side.  The  simplicity 
of  the  hither  side  may  be  natural  and  pleasing  enough,  though  it 
may  also  be  '  natural '  as  is  the  village  fool.  But  the  simplicity  of 
the  further  poetry  is  a  plainness  within  those  splendid  outer  courts 
of  approach  where  imagery  celebrates  ritual  and  ceremony.    A 

216 


At  the  Junction-lines 

few  poems  abide  in  that  further  place — a  further  place,  did  we  call 
it  ?  It  is  far,  indeed,  from  the  access  of  the  suitor,  but  closest  of 
all  things  to  the  warm  breast  of  the  very  Nurse.  Francis  Thomp- 
son dealt  almost  altogether  in  imagery ;  and  it  is  because  of  this 
that  his  less  sympathetic  readers  accuse  him  of  a  lack  of  simplicity. 
And  he  himself,  in  a  manuscript  note,  says  :  '  Imagery  is  so 
far  from  being  "  all  fancy  "  (which  is  what  people  mean  by  say- 
ing it  is  "  all  imagination  ")  that  the  deepest  truths — even  in  the 
natural  or  physical  order — are  often  adumbrated  only  by  images 
familiar,  and  yet  conceived  to  be  purely  fanciful  analogies.  .  .  .' 
No  '  lack  '  was  among  his  faults.  Where  he  might  be  charged 
or  questioned  was  in  his  commission,  not  in  his  omission — his  com- 
mission of  the  splendid  fault  of  excess.  How  many  poets  might 
be  furnished,  not  from  the  abundance,  but  from  the  overabundance, 
of  his  imagery,  and  the  prunings  and  the  chastenings  of  his  '  fancy.' 
The  spoils  of  such  a  correction  as  would  have  made  a  few  of  his 
odes  more  '  classical '  might  have  been  gathered  up,  a  golden  arm- 
ful, by  poets  who  need  have  stooped  for  nothing  else,  twelve 
basketsful  of  fragments,  after  the  feeding  of  a  chosen  multitude." 

One  is  for  the  idea,  the  other  for  vision  ;  one  for  the 
word,  the  other  for  its  conception. 

H  He  stood  at  the  very  junction-lines  of  the  visible  and 
invisible,  and  could  shift  the  points  as  he  willed,"  said 
F.  T.  of  Shelley.  And  the  lever  was  imagery ;  the 
signals  were  images  ;  the  sleepers  were  images — all  the 
machinery  that  made  and  marked  the  way.  It  binds 
the  universe  ;  it  expresses  "  the  underlying  analogies,  the 
secret  subterranean  passages,  between  matter  and  soul ; 
the  chromatic  scales,  whereat  we  dimly  guess,  by  which  the 
Almighty  modulates  through  all  the  keys  of  creation." 

That  modulation  through  time,  also,  Thompson  traces 
in  the  transition  from  antiquity  to  the  future,  from 
Paganism  to  Christianity,  from  the  Old  Law  to  the 
New : — 

On  Ararat  there  grew  a  vine ; 
When  Asia  from  her  bathing  rose, 
Our  first  sailor  made  a  twine 
217 


My 


sticism  and   Imagination 


Thereof  for  his  prefiguring  brows. 
Canst  divine 
Where,  upon  our  dusty  earth,  of  that  vine  a  cluster  grows  ? 

On  Golgotha  there  grew  a  thorn 
Round  the  long-prefigured  Brows. 
Mourn,  0  mourn  ! 
For  the  vine  have  we  the  spine  ?     Is  this  all  the  Heaven  allows  ? 

On  Calvary  was  shook  a  spear  ; 
Press  the  point  into  thy  heart — 
Joy  and  fear  ! 
All  the  spines  upon  the  thorn  into  curling  tendrils  start. 

He  had  intended  to  show  in  an  essay  that  symbolism 
is  no  arbitrary  convention.  He  bids  himself  expound 
its  elements  by  leading  examples,  and,  had  he  done  so, 
we  should  have  known  more  of  the  geography  of  that 
region  where  symbols  and  their  principles  are  merged. 
"All  things  linked  are  "  ;  the  daisy  is  the  signature  of  the 
star  ;  for  the  poet  all  terrestrial  minutiae  were  signed,  nay, 
scribbled  all  over  with  reference  marks  and  sealed  with 
the  likeness  of  larger  things.  From  an  old  commen- 
tator on  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  F.  T.  copied  : — 

"The  angelic  intellect  contains  the  things  which 
belong  to  universal  nature,  and  those  also  which  are 
the  principles  of  individuation,  knowing  by  science 
divinely  infused,  not  only  what  belongs  to  universal 
nature,  but  also  individualities  of  things,  inasmuch  as 
these  all  form  multiplied  representation  of  the  one 
Simple  Essence  of  God." 

The  ancient  school  of  Herbalists  believed  that  natural 
remedies  were  stamped  with  the  likeness  of  the  parts  to 
which  they  would  bring  healing,  as  walnuts,  which, 
because  they  "  have  the  perfect  signature  of  the  head, 
are  profitable  to  the  brain."  Poisons  show  something 
like  contrition  by  taking  to  themselves  colours  and  odours 
plainly  evil ;  vipers,  as  proper  scholars  of  the  alphabet, 
wear  V  for  venom  on  their  heads.     The  Herbalists  took 

218 


Blake's   Definitions 

the  narrowing  road,  from  vision  down  to  practice.  They 
pounded  their  discoveries  to  powder  with  the  bald-head 
pestle  of  literalness.  The  mortar  of  the  herbalist  is  the 
chalice  of  the  poet.  It  is  the  difference  again  between 
illusion  and  imagination,  or,  as  Blake  figured  them, 
between  Adam  and  Christ. 

Blake's  conception  of  the  identity  of  and  corre- 
spondence between  the  Complete  or  Divine  Mind  and 
Humanity  led  him  to  further  definitions  which  are  of 
weight  in  general  consideration  of  the  poetry  of  imagi- 
nation. Our  world,  he  held,  was  a  contraction  of  our 
mind  from  the  mind  of  God  of  which  it  is  a  part.  To 
illusion — the  perception  and  acceptance  of  the  erroneous 
deductions  of  the  contracted  personality,  or  Adam — he 
gave  the  name  Satan.  Besides  Perception  (here  I  have 
recourse  verbatim  to  Mr.  Edwin  J.  Ellis's  invaluable 
disquisition) : — 

"  Besides  perception,  always  tempting  us  to  error,  by  leading 
through  narrow  to  mistaken  personality,  there  is  '  imagination,' 
always  inviting  us  to  truth.  For  this  Blake  took  the  name  of 
Saviour,  or  Humanity  free  from  Adam's  narrowness  and  Satan's 
falseness." 

Of  the  more  purely  literary  aspect  of  imagery  Thomp- 
son has  written  : — 

"  How  beautiful  a  thing  the  frank  toying  with  imagery 
may  be,  let  'The  Skylark'  and  'The  Cloud'  witness.  It 
is  only  evil  when  the  poet,  on  the  straight  way  to  a  fixed 
object,  lags  continually  from  the  path  to  play.  This  is 
commendable  neither  in  poet  nor  errand-boy." 

And  again  : — 

"To  sport  with  the  tangles  of  Ne?era's  hair  may  be 
trivial  idleness  or  caressing  tenderness,  exactly  as  your 
relation  to  Neasra  is  that  of  heartless  gallantry  or  love. 
So  you  may  toy  with  imagery  in  mere  intellectual 
ingenuity,  and  then  you  might  as  well  go  write  acrostics ; 

219 


Mysticism  and   Imagination 

or  you  may  toy  with  it  in  raptures,  and  then  you  may 
write  a  '  Sensitive  Plant.'  " 

In  all  the  poetry  belonging  to  the  period  of  "The 
Mistress  of  Vision "  Patmore  is  the  master  of  vision. 
He  leads  the  way  to  "deific  peaks"  and  "conquered 
skies,"  the  Virgil  of  a  younger  Dante. 

Their  thoughts  chimed  to  the  same  stroke  of  metre 
and  rhyme  ; x  for  each  of  the  mystical  poems  may  be 
found  suggestions  in  Patmore.  For  the  "  Dread  of 
Height "  we  find  among  "  Aurea  Dicta  "  the  following  : — 

"  '  Searchers  of  Majesty  shall  be  overwhelmed  with  the  glory.' 
Blissfully  overwhelmed  ;  ruined  for  this  world,  yet  even  in  this 
enriched  beyond  thought ;  happy  searchers,  consumed  by  the 
thunder  of  divine  instructions  and  the  lightning  of  divine  per- 
ceptions, but  surviving  as  new  creatures  in  the  very  flesh  of  the 
destroyer." 

And  again  : — 

"  The  spirit  of  man  is  like  a  kite,  which  rises  by  means  of  those 
very  forces  which  seem  to  oppose  its  rise ;  the  tie  that  joins  it 
to  the  earth,  the  opposing  winds  of  temptation,  and  the  weight  of 
earth-born  affections  which  it  carries  with  it  into  the  sky." 

Patmore's  "  Hate  pleasure,  if  only  because  this  is  the 
only  means  of  obtaining  it"  is  the  root  paradox  of 
the  many  found  in  the  lines  beginning — "  Lose,  that  the 
lost  thou  may'st  receive,"  and  the  rest. 

But  go  through  the  whole  of  the  two  poets,  and 
even  while  recognising  the  twin  enterprises  of  imagi- 
nation you  will  end  in  the  enjoyment  of  their  dis- 
similarity. Patmore  has  quoted  St.  Paul — "  Let  each 
man  abound  in  his  own  sense,"  and  has  said  himself : — 

'  When  once  he  has  got  into  the  region  of  perception,  let  him 
take  care  that  his  vision  is  his  own,  and  not  fancy  he  can  profit 
himself  or  others  much  by  trying  to  appropriate  their  peculiar 
variations  of  the  common  theme." 

1  "  The  metre  in  my  present  volume,"  wrote  the  author  in  a  suppressed 
preface  to  New  Poems,  "is  completely  based  on  the  principles  which  Mr. 
Patmore  may  be  said  virtually  to  have  discovered." 

220 


To   Each   his  Vision 

Patmore  may  have  given  Thompson  a  metre  and  a 
score  of  thoughts,  but  above  everything  else  he  gave 
him  the  freedom  of  his  imagination.  Having  led  him 
to  a  point  of  vantage,  he  looked  in  the  same  direc- 
tion, but  the  revelation  varied  as  the  view  varies  to 
two  men  who  walk  along  a  road  towards  the  same 
sunset.  They  are  a  few  paces  apart ;  to  one  an  in- 
tervening tree  may  be  black  and  sombre,  to  the  other 
streaked  with  fire.  The  height  they  reached  may  have 
been  the  same,  but  the  dread  of  height  was  to  each  a 
thing  of  his  own. 

From  Patmore,  August  1895  : — 

"  I  see,  with  joy,  how  nearly  we  are  upon  the  same  lines,  but 
our  visions  could  not  be  true  were  they  quite  the  same  ;  and  no 
one  can  really  see  anything  but  his  own  vision." 

Again,  in  November  of  the  same  year : — 

"  It  is  always  a  great  thing  to  me  to  receive  a  letter  from  you. 
My  heart  goes  forth  to  you  as  it  goes  to  no  other  man  ;  for  are  we 
not  singularly  visited  by  a  great  common  delight  and  a  great 
common  sorrow  ?     Is  not  this  to  be  one  in  Christ  ?  " 

Later  : — 

"  You  dissipate  my  solitude  and  melancholy  as  no  other,  but 
one,  can." 

Again  from  Patmore  : — 

"  In  the  manner  of  your  verse  you  are  gaining  in  simplicity, 
which  is  a  great  thing.  But  I  will  speak  more  of  that  bye-and-bye. 
In  the  matter,  I  think  you  outstrip  me.  I  am  too  concrete  and 
intelligible.  I  fear  greatly  lest  what  I  have  written  may  not  do 
more  harm  than  good,  by  exposing  Divine  realities  to  profane 
comprehensions,  and  by  inflaming  '  popular  esotericism.'  " 

"The  Mistress  of  Vision"  is  described  by  F.  T.  as 
u  a  phantasy  with  no  more  than  an  illusive  tinge  of 
psychic  significance."  It  is  a  masque  in  which  he  and 
his  Muse  observe  the  formalities  of  dialogue,  but  before 

221 


Mysticism  and   Imagination 

the  poem  is  finished  the  truth  is  out ;  as  when,  dawn 
breaking  upon  dancing  lovers,  their  steps  cease,  and 
for  a  moment  their  embrace  is  real.  So  in  the  poem  : 
the  phantasy  is  not  maintained ;  the  masque  is  up. 
Christ,  before  one  is  aware,  is  treading  the  land  of 
Luthany,  is  walking  on  the  waters.  Following,  in  care- 
fully considered  sequence,  is  "  Contemplation,"  and, 
afterward,  the  true  fruits  of  The  Unknown  Eros.  "  I 
felt  my  instrument  yet  too  imperfect  to  profane  by 
it  the  highest  ranges  of  mysticism,"  he  had  said,  and, 
in  "The  Mistress  of  Vision,"  "The  Dread  of  Height," 
and  particularly  in  "The  Orient  Ode,"  something  is 
withheld.  As  the  rood-screen  shields  the  altar,  lan- 
guage screens  revelation. 

Although  the  spirit  of  reservation  in  the  literature  of 
religious  experience  has  apology  in  the  saying  that  they 
who  know  God  best  do  not  seek  to  define  Him,  that 
is  not  the  leading  argument  for  reticence.  Patmore 
said  that  in  such  matters  the  part  is  greater  than  the 
whole,  and  in  any  case 

"  No  great  art,  no  really  effective  ethical  teaching  can  come 
from  any  but  such  as  know  immeasurably  more  than  they  will 
attempt  to  communicate." 

And,  beyond  that,  they  recognised  truths  "  which  it 
is  not  lawful  to  utter,"  but  knew  that  the  poet  may 
express  them  in  ways  that  shade  them  to  the  eye,  or 
make  them  invisible  as  the  too-bright  disc  of  the  sun. 
Sufficient  rays  may  pass  through  cloudy  speech  to 
diffuse  life-sufficing  warmth.  "  See  that  thou  tell  no 
man  "  is  an  injunction  of  which  the  poets  keep  the  letter 
but  break  the  spirit. 

"Not  only  among  the  Hebrews,"  writes  F.T.  in  a  review 
of  a  paper  on  St.  Clement,  "  but  among  the  Egyptians 
and  Greeks,  prophecies  and  oracles  were  delivered 
under  enigmas.     The  Egyptian  hieroglyphics,  the  apo- 

222 


Reservation 

thegms  of  the  wise  men  of  Greece,  are  instances  of  the 
practice  of  throwing  a  kind  of  veil  around  important 
truths  in  order  that  the  curiosity  of  men  may  be  aroused 
and  their  diligence  stimulated.  All  who  treated  of 
divine  things,  whether  Greeks  or  Barbarians,  concealed 
the  principles.  .  .  .  Whatever  has  a  veil  of  mystery 
thrown  around  it,  causes  the  truth  to  appear  more 
grand  and  awful." 

St.  Clement  speaks  of  an  unwritten  tradition  of 
blessed  doctrine,  handed  down  from  SS.  Peter,  James, 
John,  and  Paul.  St.  Clement's  own  account  of  these 
sacred  doctrines  is,  he  himself  says,  incomplete  ;  some 
he  has  forgotten,  others  he  would  be  unwilling  to  allude 
to  even  in  speech,  much  more  unwilling  in  writing, 
lest  they  who  met  them  should  pervert  them  to  their 
own  injury,  and  he  should  thus  be  placing,  according 
to  the  proverb,  a  sword  in  the  hand  of  a  child. 

We  may  suspect  Patmore  and  Thompson  of  this 
mystical  knowledge,  since  they  exercised  St.  Clement's 
caution.  So  does  the  Eastern  teacher  of  the  day  ;  and 
all  of  these  conform  in  not  being  thinkers  of  the 
scientific  or  material  order.  The  Socratic  definition 
of  the  true  philosopher  "  who  in  his  meditations  neither 
employs  his  sight  nor  any  of  his  senses,  but  a  pure 
understanding  alone,"  must,  with  Blake's  "Cultivate 
imagination  to  the  point  of  vision,"  be  printed  on  page  i 
of  the  first  First  Reader  in  mysticism. 

Thompson  dwells  also  on  St.  Paul's  unspoken  message, 
which,  designated  by  the  name  of  wisdom,  he  withheld 
from  many  of  the  Corinthians  because  they  were  not 
fit  to  hear  it.  He  communicated  it  to  the  spiritual  not 
to  the  animal  man.  Origen  says  that  that  which  St. 
Paul  would  have  called  wisdom  is  found  in  the  "Canticle 
of  Canticles."  Thompson  dwells  further  on  the  hidden 
meanings  of  the  Pentateuch,  believing  that  there  was 
"an  inexhaustible  treasure  of  divine  wisdom  concealed 

223 


Mysticism  and   Imagination 

under  the  letter  of  Holy  Writ."  Thompson  saw  wise 
men  whispering,  and  guessed  that  there  were  secrets ; 
their  presence  discovered,  they  were  open  secrets  for 
such  as  he.  "  You  have  but  to  direct  my  sight,  and  the 
intentness  of  my  gaze  will  discover  the  rest."  Of  the 
poet  who  is  religious  it  may  be  said  :  "There  hath  drawn 
near  a  man  to  a  deep  heart,  that  is,  a  secret  heart." 
Look  not  at  a  star  if  you  wish  to  see  it :  avert  your 
gaze  and  it  is  clearer  to  you.  So  with  the  rockets  and 
flashes  of  revelation.  The  Mass  has  secrets,  and  so  have 
children.  It  must  be  remembered  that  the  greater  part 
of  F.  T.'s  seeming  reservations  are  only  such  as  exist  be- 
tween the  Church  and  the  outer  world.     For  instance : — 

"The  personal  embrace  between  Creator  and  creature 
is  so  solely  the  secret  and  note  of  Catholicism,  that 
its  language  to  the  outer  sects  is  unintelligible— the 
strange  bruit  of  inapprehensible  myth." 

During  walks  at  Pantasaph  and  Lymington,  Thompson 
penetrated  on  the  one  hand  to  places  where  thought 
is  singed  and  scorched,  on  the  other  to  healing  regions 
of  light;  at  one  time  deep  in  melancholy,  at  another 
buoyantly  content.  A.  M.  observed  that  during  certain 
drives  with  Coventry  Patmore  he  would  sit  looking  at 
the  floor  of  the  carriage  with  the  harrowing  expression 
that  one  gathers  from  Rossetti's  "  Wood  Spurge." 

Imagination  is  onerous.  Christina  Rossetti  points  to 
more  than  a  problem  in  artistry  when  she  writes  : — 

"  At  first  sight  and  apparently  the  easiest  of  all  conceptions 
to  realise,  I  yet  suppose  that  there  may,  in  the  long  run,  be  no 
conception  more  difficult  for  ourselves  to  clench  and  retain  than 
this  of  absolute  Unity  ;  this  oneness  at  all  times,  in  all  connexions, 
for  all  purposes." 

But  once  grasped  it  may  never  be  relinquished.  And  it 
is  a  commonplace  of  the  mystics  that  contemplation  is 
painful.     St.  John  of  the  Cross's  warning  of  the   deso- 

224 


"  Life  is  an   Inkermann 


>> 


lation  that   follows  the   dwelling  in   the    neutral    land 
between  the  temporal  and  the  spiritual  is  one  of  many. 

There  is  no  escape.  Conscience  is  another  name  for 
consciousness.  "  If  men  understood  clearly  they  would 
sin  at  every  step,  wherefore  they  understand  grossly,  that 
sin  may  not  be  imputed  to  them,"  wrote  F.  T.,  half 
protesting  against  the  disabilities  of  clear  understanding. 
And  again  : — 

"Life  is  an  Inkermann,  fought  in  the  mist.  If  men 
saw  clearly,  they  would  despair  to  fight.  Wherefore  the 
Almighty  opens  the  eyes  only  of  those  whom  He  has  led 
by  special  ways  of  gradual  inurement  and  preparation." 

The  futility  of  Francis's  conversational  repetition  was 
a  by-word  ;  but  when  he  said  a  thing  twice  in  verse  or 
prose  it  probably  mattered  more  than  most  other  things. 
"The  Dread  of  Height"  states  the  burden  of  knowledge, 
and  John  ix.  41.,  quoted  as  the  poem's  motto,  is  made  to 
enforce  it  too : — "If  ye  were  blind  ye  should  have  no 
sin ;  but  now  ye  say  We  see,  your  sin  remaineth." 
What  John  said  (in  ix.  41,  or  elsewhere)  he  would  gener- 
ally have  thought  sufficiently  said.  But  in  this  matter  he 
repeats  John,  and  then  more  than  once  repeats  himself. 

A  man  does  not,  because  he  is  as  conscious  of  his 
God  as  were  the  disciples  who  really  had  Him  on  the 
road  to  Emmaus,  find  the  road  an  easy  one.  Bunyan 
holds  good  ;  the  better  way  is  the  roughest.  The  more 
excellent  landscape  is  that  which  is  seen  against  the 
sun.  But  it  is  rigid  in  its  splendours  ;  every  cock  of 
hay,  every  clod,  is  a  shadow.  Is  the  ear  that  hears  "  the 
winds  their  Maker  magnify  "  happier  than  that  which 
can  note  only  rattling  of  windows  and  the  cracking  of 
boughs  ?  During  sound  perhaps,  not  certainly  during 
pauses  in  sound  : — 

"  I  never  found  any  so  religious  and  devout,  that  he 
had  not  sometimes  a  withdrawing  of  grace.  There  was 
never  Saint  so  highly  rapt  and  illuminated,  who  before 

225  P 


Mysticism  and   Imagination 

or  after  was  not  tempted.  For  he  is  not  worthy  of  the 
high  contemplation  of  God  who  has  not  been  troubled 
with  some  tribulations  for  God's  sake." 

The  commonplaces  of  the  Imitation  are  sound  sense. 
"Thou  visitest  him  early  in  the  morning  ;  and  suddenly 
Thou  provest  him." 

I  do  think  my  tread, 

Stirring  the  blossom  in  the  meadow-grass, 

Flickers  the  unwithering  stars. 

Such  treading  may  be  better  than  the  asphalt  of  every 
day,  but  it  is  not  easy  going. 

Of  futurity  he  wrote  in  a  letter  to  A.  M. : — ■ 

"  You  must  know  this  thing  of  me  already,  having 
read  those  Manning  verses,  which  I  do  not  like  to  read 
again.  You  know  that  I  believe  in  eternal  punishment : 
you  know  that  when  my  dark  hour  is  on  me,  this 
individual  terror  is  the  most  monstrous  of  all  that  haunt 
me.  But  it  is  individual.  For  others — even  if  the 
darker  view  were  true,  the  fewness  is  relative  to  the 
total  mass  of  mankind,  not  absolute ;  while  I  myself 
refuse  to  found  upon  so  doubtful  a  thing  as  a  few 
scattered  texts  a  tremendous  prejudgment  which  has 
behind  it  no  consentaneous  voice  of  the  Church.  And  I 
do  firmly  believe  that  none  are  lost  who  have  not  wil- 
fully closed  their  eyes  to  the  known  light  :  that  such  as 
fall  with  constant  striving,  battling  with  their  tempera- 
ment, or  through  ill-training  circumstance  which  shuts 
them  from  true  light,  &c.  ;  that  all  these  shall  taste  of 
God's  justice,  which  for  them  is  better  than  man's  mercy. 
But  if  you  would  see  the  present  state  of  my  convictions 
on  the  subject  turn  to  the  new  Epilogue  of  my  'Judge- 
ment in  Heaven '  (you  will  find  it  in  the  wooden  box)." 

His  correspondent  has  written  : — 

"  As  a  thinker,  Francis  Thompson  is  profoundly  meditative, 
and,  if  pessimistic,  then  pessimistic  with  submission  and  fear,  not 

226 


The  Heart  of  Woman 

with  revolt.  His  thought  must  not  be  called  gloomy,  even  when 
it  is  dark  as  night,  for  in  the  darkness  there  is  a  sense  of  open  and 
heavenly  air." 

The  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  (although  at  first 
he  did  not  see  it,  having  been  a  seminarist,  a  person 
not  always  apt  to  be  in  the  secret)  was  that  the  singer  of 
the  Church — the  Church  that  defined  the  Immaculate 
Conception — should  be  a  poet  of  woman-kind — one  of 
the  Marians.  Seminary  training  did  not  prepare  him  for 
a  world  of  women.  A  note  on  the  Marriage  of  Cana, 
which  proves,  he  avers,  that  "  much  wine  is  needed 
before  a  man  may  go  through  with  matrimony,"  is 
characteristic  of  his  schooling.  In  humour  the  school- 
ing lasted  when  all  else  had  been  outlived.  His  unpub- 
lished comedy  "  Man  Proposes,  Woman  Disposes  "  is  full 
of  ready-made  gibes,  and  his  "  Dress,"  printed  in  the  Daily 
Mail,  is  threadbare  comic  verse  on  a  subject  he  treated 
reverently  enough  when  there  was  no  joke  to  crack. 
It  is  still,  perhaps,  as  the  seminarist  that  he  notes  :  "  In 
Burmah  the  monks  complain  that  women  are  natively 
incapable  of  any  true  understanding  of  religion."  But 
it  is  a  later  Thompson  who  adds  the  comment :  "  The 
heart  of  woman  is  the  citadel,  the  ultimum  refugium  of 
true  religiosity."  Genesis  gives  him  the  heading  for 
several  pages  of  a  note-book  devoted  to  such  subjects : 
u  I  will  put  enmity  between  thee  and  the  woman." 

Rod,  Root,  and  Flower  set  him  to  work  in  the  same 
nursery-garden.  His  note-books  reflect  Patmore's  aphor- 
istic habit.  He  himself  defended  or  denied  the  "frag- 
mentary" nature  of  Patmore's  book.  "  It  might  as  well 
be  said  that  the  heavens  are  fragmentary,  because  the 
stars  are  not  linked  by  golden  chains.  You  are  given  the 
stars — the  central  and  illuminative  suggestions  ;  you  are 
left  to  work  out  for  yourself,  by  meditations,  the  system 
of  which  they  are  the  nodal  points."  This,  it  will  be 
seen,  is  his  rewriting  of  Patmore's  own  comment  on  the 
book,  quoted  at  p.  201. 

227 


Mysticism  and  Imagination 

I  can  do  no  more  than  bring  together  his  scattered 
notes  on  Woman.  He  himself  could  hardly  have  fitted 
them  into  any  satisfactory  sequence. 

In  a  note-book  I  find  : — 

"  The  function  of  natural  love  is  to  create  a  craving 
which  it  cannot  satisfy.  And  then  only  has  its  water 
been  tasted  in  perfect  purity,  if  it  awakens  an  insatiate 
thirst  of  wine." 

His  hope  is  made  known  in  his  poetry: — 

The  Woman  I  behold,  whose  vision  seek 

All  eyes  and  know  not ;  t'ward  whom  climb 

The  steps  of  the  world,  and  beats  all  wing  of  rhyme. 

And  his  prose  : — 

"When  the  federation  of  the  world  comes  (as  come  I 
believe  it  will)  it  can  only  be  federation  in  both  govern- 
ment and  religion  of  plenary  and  ordered  dominance. 
I  see  only  two  religions  constant  enough  to  effect  this  : 
each  based  upon  the  past — which  is  stability  ;  each 
growing  according  to  an  interior  law — which  is  strength. 
Paganism  and  Christianism  ;  the  religion  of  the  Queen 
of  Heaven  who  is  Astarte,  and  of  the  Queen  of  Heaven 
who  is  Mary."  (Note  by  F.  T.  :  ttl  We  offer  sacrifice  to 
the  Queen  of  Heaven '  "  (Jer.  xliv.  19). 

Once  he  turns  the  subject  with  a  stock  phrase  of 
playfulness — 

Daughter  of  the  ancient  Eve, 

We  know  the  gifts  ye  gave — and  give. 

Who  knows  the  gifts  which  you  shall  give, 

Daughter  of  the  newer  Eve  ? 

You,  if  my  soul  be  augur,  you 

Shall — 0  what  shall  you  not,  Sweet,  do  ? 

But  before  he  is  through  with  the  poem  he  is  led  to 

228 


"A  Narrow  Vessel" 

greater  explicitness,  and,  finally,  to  the  solemn  manner  of 
concealment — 

When  to  love  you  is  (0  Christ's  spouse  !) 

To  love  the  beauty  of  His  house  ; 

Then  come  the  Isaian  days  ;  the  old 

Shall  dream  ;  and  our  young  men  behold 

Vision — yea,  the  vision  of  Thabor-mount, 

Which  none  to  other  shall  recount, 

Because  in  all  men's  hearts  shall  be 

The  seeing  and  the  prophecy. 

For  ended  is  the  Mystery  Play, 

When  Christ  is  life,  and  you  the  way  ; 

When  Egypt's  spoils  are  Israel's  right, 

And  Day  fulfils  the  married  arms  of  Night. 

But  here  my  lips  are  still. 

Until 

You  and  the  hour  shall  be  revealed, 

This  song  is  sung  and  sung  not,  and  its  words  are  sealed. 

In  thee,  Queen,  man  is  saturate  with  God. 

Blest  period 
To  God's  redeeming  sentence.    So  in  thee 
Mercy  at  length  is  uttered  utterly. 

In  human  passion,  as  in  sun-worship,  he  relates  every- 
thing to  the  Deity.  It  is  within  forbidden  degrees  if  it 
cannot  be  referred  back  to  Divine  Love.  His  series  "A 
Narrow  Vessel,"  he  describes  as  "  being  a  little  dramatic 
sequence  on  the  aspect  of  primitive  girl-nature  towards 
a  love  beyond  its  capacities."  Opening  with  a  "  rape  of 
the  lock,"  the  whole  breadth  of  the  centuries  and  of  the 
human  mind  apart  from  Pope's,  the  girl  bemoans  the 
gift  of  her  hair  : — 

My  lock  the  enforced  steel  did  grate 

To  cut ;  its  root-thrills  came 
Down  to  my  bosom.     It  might  sate 

His  lust  for  my  poor  shame. 

Here  is  unwonted  attention  to  the  minutiae  of   sensa- 
tion ;  and  the  third  poem  of  the  second  series  is  the  one 

229 


Mysticism  and  Imagination 

that  comes  nearest  in  all  Thompson's  work  to  the  many 
love  poems  of  the  many  modern  poetry-books.  The  like- 
ness is  startling.  It  is  the  only  poem  of  his  which  the 
illustrators  of  "Tennyson"  of  1857  would  have  relished 
to  put  upon  wood.  The  girl  was  an  actual  girl  named 
Maggie  Bryan,  of  the  Welsh  village ;  his  photograph 
was  long  kept  in  her  narrow  room,  and  her  grave,  made 
in  the  October  following  the  poet's  death,  is  near  the 
scene  of  that  love-making  that  was  so  incongruous  and 
timid  that  it  had  little  real  existence  in  word  or  look. 
"Love  Declared,"  the  poem  that  sinks  to  the  commoner 
level  of  love-poetry,  is  fiction  and  reads  like  it  ;  the  rest 
reality — only  a  little  more  than  the  reality. 

But  Thompson  did  not  leave  it  at  reality.  No  sooner 
has  an  unwary  reader,  who,  on  other  pages,  had  been 
clutching  at  his  poet,  made  sure,  on  this  one,  of  his  man 
than  the  creature  of  bone  and  muscle  slips  from  him. 
The  sequence,  it  is  confessed  in  the  last  poem,  is  written 
solely  in  the  interests  of  allegory.  Here  for  once  is 
actuality,  one  had  said ;  but  only  to  learn  that  no  actua- 
lity bulks  so  large  for  the  poet  himself  as  the  actuality 
of  religious  speculation.  His  own  Pantasaph  drama,  a 
thing  that  passed  in  the  high-street,  hemmed  in  by 
cottages,  noted  by  gossipers,  with  strong  hill  winds 
blowing  in  the  faces  of  the  actors,  was  most  personal  to 
the  hero  for  its  allegorical  meaning — 

"  How  many,"  he  asks,  "  have  grasped  the  significance 
of  my  sequence,  A  Narrow  Vessel?  Critics  either  over- 
looked it  altogether  or  adverted  to  it  as  trivial  and  discon- 
nected. One,  who  prized  it,  and  wished  I  had  always 
written  as  humanly,  grieved  that  the  epilogue  turned  it 
into  an  unreal  allegory.  He  could  not  understand  that 
all  human  love  was  to  me  a  symbol  of  divine  love  ;  nay, 
that  human  love  was  in  my  eyes  a  piteous  failure  unless 
as  an  image  of  the  supreme  Love  which  gave  meaning 
and  reality  to  its  seeming  insanity.     The  lesson  of  that 

230 


The  Girl  and  the  Allegory 

sequence  is  just  this.  Woman  repels  the  great  and  pure 
love  of  man  in  proportion  to  its  purity.  This  is  due  to 
an  instinct  which  she  lacks  the  habits  and  power  to 
analyse,  that  the  love  of  the  pure  and  lofty  lover  is  so 
deep,  so  vast  in  its  withheld  emotion,  as  her  entire  self 
would  be  unable  to  pay  back.  Though  she  cast  her 
whole  self  down  that  eager  gulf,  it  would  disappear  as 
a  water-drop  in  the  ocean.  And  though  the  lover  ask 
no  more  than  her  little  tremulous  self  may  think  fit 
to  give,  she  feels  that  so  vast  a  love  claims  of  right  and 
equity  her  total  surrender.  Though  the  lover  be  gener- 
ously unexacting,  that  wonderful  gift,  she  feels,  exacts 
no  less  than  all,  and  then  she  cannot  with  her  entire 
potency  and  abandonment  of  love  adequate  the  hungry 
immensity  poured  around  it.  So,  with  instinctive  fear, 
she  recoils  from  a  love  which  her  all  cannot  equal. 
Though  the  lover  asks  no  more  than  she  .please  to  give, 
his  love  asks  her  very  being,  demands  a  continual  upward 
strain.  The  narrow  vessel  dreads  to  crack  under  the 
overflowing  love  which  surges  into  it.  She  shrinks  with 
tremor  ;  she  turns  to  the  lover  whose  shallow  love  has 
nought  to  frighten  her  ;  she  can  halt  where  she  pleases, 
far  short  of  total  surrender.  It  is  an  easy  beginning, 
which  seems  to  involve  so  little  and  involves — how  much  ! 
For  she  does  not  understand  that  once  she  begins  to 
love,  her  nature  will  not  rest  short  of  supreme  surrender 
(I  assume  an  average  nature  capable  of  love),  and  that 
she  will  end  by  wasting  her  whole  self  on  this  thin  soil, 
which  will  reject  and  anticipate  it  (while)  she  recoiled 
with  dislike  and  fear  from  the  great  love  which  would 
have  absorbed  and  repaid  it  an  hundred-fold.  Now  this 
is  but  the  image  and  explanation  of  the  soul's  attitude 
towards  only  God.  The  one  is  illustrated  by  the  other. 
Though  God  asks  of  the  soul  but  to  love  him  what  it 
may,  and  is  ready  to  give  an  increased  love  for  a  poor 
little,  the  soul  feels  that  this  infinite  love  demands 
naturally  its  whole  self,  that  if  it  begin  to  love  God  it 

231 


Mysticism  and  Imagination 

may  not  stop  short  of  all  it  has  to  yield.  It  is  troubled, 
even  if  it  did  go  a  brief  way,  on  the  upward  path  ;  it  fears 
and  recoils  from  the  whole  great  surrender,  the  constant 
effort  beyond  itself  which  is  sensibly  laid  on  it.  It  falls 
back  with  relieved  contentment  on  some  human  love,  a 
love  on  its  own  plane,  where  somewhat  short  of  total 
surrender  may  go  to  requital,  where  no  upward  effort  is 
needful.  And  it  ends  by  giving  for  the  meanest,  the 
most  unsufficing  and  half-hearted  return,  that  utter  self- 
surrender  and  self-effacement  which  it  denied  to  God. 
Even  (how  rarely)  if  the  return  be  such  as  mortal  may 
render,  how  empty  and  unsatiated  it  leaves  the  soul. 
One  always  is  less  generous  of  love  than  the  other.  Now 
this  was  the  theme  and  meaning  of  my  sequence.  It 
did  not  (as  it  should  have  done)  follow  on  to  the  facile 
welcome  of  a  light  love.  But  that  was  by  implication 
glanced  at  in  the  epilogue,  which  drew  what  I  have 
shown  to  be  the  real  conclusion  of  the  entire  study — 
even  to  the  possible  most  tragic  issue  of  all,  in  the  soul 
which  has  taken  the  kiss  of  the  Spouse  (so  to  speak)  only 
to  fall  away  from  Him,  '  the  heart  where  good  is  well 
perceived  and  known,  yet  is  not  willed.'  " 

That  sequence,  he  said,  was  written  solely  in  the 
interests  of  allegory.  Obviously  the  episode  was  not 
sufficient  unto  itself.  Only  once  had  he  known  love 
really  sufficient  for  love  poetry. 


232 


CHAPTER   XI:    PATMORE'S   DEATH 
AND    "NEW   POEMS" 

In  July,  1896,  the  year  of  his  death,  Patmore  made  an 
offer  of  service  memorable  from  a  man,  called  arrogant 
and  harsh,  to  a  man  who  might  well,  in  personal 
matters,  have  stirred  his  prejudices  : — 

"  You  were  looking  so  unwell  when  we  parted,  that,  not  having 
heard  from  you,  I  am  somewhat  alarmed.  Pray  let  me  have  a 
post-card. 

"  If,  at  any  time,  you  find  yourself  seriously  ill,  and  do  not  find 
the  attendance,  food,  &c,  sufficiently  good,  tell  me  and  I  will  go 
to  Pantasaph  to  take  care  of  you  for  any  time  you  might  find  me 
useful.  It  would  be  a  great  pleasure  and  honour  to  serve  you  in 
any  way." 

Thompson  answered  : — 

"...  You  have  been  most  generously  kind  to  me  ;  and 
I  can  truly  say  that  I  never  yet  fell  from  any  friend  who 
did  not  first  fall  from  me.  I  thank  you  for  the  great 
honour  you  have  done  me  by  your  offer  to  come  up 
and  look  after  me  if  I  needed  nursing.  Fortunately  it 
has  not  come  to  that  yet. 

"  I  have  not  seen  Meredith's  article1 — I  am  so  entirely 
cut  off  from  the  outside  world." 

When  the  Laureateship  fell  vacant  Patmore  wrote  to 
the  Saturday  Review  proposing  my  mother's  name. 
Francis  wrote  to  him  : — 

"  I  think  your  Saturday  letter  very  felicitously  put.  But 
alas  !  small  are  the  chances  of  any  government  acting 
on  it.  I  fear  the  compliment  to  'journalism'  points 
too  surely  to  Edwin  Arnold.     I  have  not  received  the 

1  "Mrs.  Meynell's  Essays"  in  the  National  Review,  Aug.  1896. 

233 


Patmore's  Death 

Selections.1  A.  M.  has  only  once  in  my  life  sent  me  a 
book  of  hers — her  essays.  I  should  indeed  like  to  see 
the  book.  The  selections  in  themselves  must  possess  a 
peculiar  interest  for  me  ;  and  the  Preface  I  am  most 
eager  to  read." 

The  appointment  made,  Francis  again  wrote  to  the 
point : — 

"  What  a  pity  you  could  not  uphold  the  dignity  of  the 
Laureateship  in  the  eyes  of  Europe." 

Patmore  died  in  November,  1896.  To  Mrs.  Patmore 
Francis  wrote  : — 

"  I  am  shocked  and  overcome  to  hear  of  your — and 
my — bereavement ;  there  has  passed  away  the  greatest 
genius  of  the  century,  and  from  me  a  friend  whose 
like  I  shall  not  see  again ;  one  so  close  to  my  own  soul 
that  the  distance  of  years  between  us  was  hardly  felt, 
nor  could  the  distance  of  miles  separate  us.  I  had  a 
letter  from  him  but  last  Monday,  and  was  hoping  that 
I  might  shortly  see  him  again.  Now  my  hope  is  turned 
suddenly  into  mourning. 

"The  irrevocableness  of  such  a  grief  is  mocked  by 
many  words ;  these  few  words  least  wrong  it.  My 
friend  is  dead,  and  I  had  but  one  such  friend. — Yours  in 
all  sympathy  of  sorrow,  Francis  Thompson.' 


»> 


At  the  same  time  he  wrote  to  Palace  Court  : — 

"  Creccas  Cottage,  Pantasaph. 

"  Dear  Wilfrid, — I  send  you  my  lodging  account  for 
the  last  two  months. 

"  Of  nothing  can  I  write  just  now.  You  know  what 
friends  we  had  been  these  last  two  years.  And  I  heard 
from  him  but  the  Monday  before  his  death.  There  is 
no  more  to  say,  because  there  is  too  much  more  to  say. 
Yours  always,  Francis  Thompson." 

1  Poetry  of  Pathos  and  Delight,  being  selections  made  by  Alice  Meynell 
from  the  poetry  of  Coventry  Patmore. 

234 


"  Oceanic  Vast  of  Intellect ' 

"  P.S. — I  am  fearful  about  the  Athenaeum  project.  I 
told  Coventry  I  had  altered  the  sub-title  to  prevent 
identification,  lest  the  poem 1  should  offend  his  friends  ; 
and  since  he  did  not  dispute  it,  I  conclude  he  took  my 
view  that  it  might  give  displeasure.  To  dwell  on  the 
harsher  side  of  his  character  now  has  an  ungracious 


air." 


Of  the  same  poem  he  wrote  again  to  W.  M. : — 

"  I  am  sorry  I  could  not  wire  the  correction  in  time. 
I  did  not  see  your  letter  till  too  late  on  Thursday  to  do 
anything.  I  would  rather  have  had  the  phrase  altered, 
and  hope  Mrs.  Meynell  may  have  taken  on  herself  to  do 
so,  since  it  only  affected  the  poem  temporarily.  In  my 
book  I  shall  retain  the  original  phrase,  which  Coventry 
would  have  objected  to  have  altered  in  permanent  record. 
He  accepted  and  justified  my  use  of  the  phrase,  in  a 
poem  drawing  only  an  aspect  of  his  character.  But 
where  it  was  connected  with  him  as  a  funeral  poem,  I 
would  certainly  have  wished  it  replaced  by  something 
else.  About  all  things  I  trust  soon  to  have  personal 
talk  with  you.     Always  yours  affectionately, 

Francis  Thompson." 

The  high-pitched  phrases  of  the  obituary  poems  con- 
fess the  strain  he  put  upon  himself  to  publish  his  grief. 
He  dropped  into  private  prose  while  he  was  at  the  task. 
"Age  alone  will  grasp  in  some  dim  measure  what  must 
have  been  the  unmanifested  powers  of  a  mind  from 
which  could  go  forth  this  starry  manifestation  ;  and 
what  'silence  full  of  wonders'  interspaced  his  opulent 
frugality  of  speech."  "  It  remains  a  personal  (and 
wonderful)  memory  that  to  me  sometimes,  athwart  the 
shifting  clouds  of  converse,  was  revealed  by  glimpses 
the  direct  vision  of  that  oceanic  vast  of  intellect."     *\  The 

1  "  A  Captain  oi  Song,"  addressed  to  Patmore  before  his  death,  and  at 
his  death  published  in  the  Athenaum,  December  5,  1896. 

235 


Patmore's  Death 

basic  silence  of  our  love "  and  the  "  under-silence  of 
love"  are  other  phrases  that  tell  of  something  not  to 
be  expresssed  in  the  obituary  column.  There  are  scraps, 
also,  of  private  verse  which  tell  his  sorrow : — 

0  how  I  miss  you  any  casual  day  ! 

And  as  I  walk 

Turn,  in  the  customed  way, 

Towards  you  with  the  talk 

Which  who  but  you  should  hear  ? 

And  know  the  intercepting  day 

Betwixt  me  and  your  only  listening  ear ; 

And  no  man  ever  more  my  tongue  shall  hear, 

And  dumb  amid  an  alien  folk  I  stray. 

He  grieved  for  Patmore  as  a  wife  grieves  for  the 
husband  who  dies  before  the  birth  of  her  child.  "This 
latest,  highest,  of  my  work,"  he  says  of  a  portion  of 
New  Poems,  "is  now  born  dumb.  It  had  been  sung 
into  his  sole  ears.  Now  there  is  none  who  speaks  its 
language."  His  loss  made  a  visit  to  his  friends  in 
London  desirable. 

Of  the  dedication  he  had  previously  written  to 
Patmore : — 

"  The  book  (A.  M.'s  The  Colour  of  Life)  is  dedicated  to 
you,  and  just  a  fortnight  ago  I  sent  to  London  a  volume 
of  poems — the  product  of  the  last  three  years — which  I 
had  also  (knowing  nothing  then  of  her  intention,  or 
even  that  she  had  a  book  on  the  point  of  appearing) 
taken  the  liberty  of  dedicating  to  you." 

That  dedication  to  Patmore  runs  : — 

Lo,  my  book  thinks  to  look  Time's  leaguer  down, 
Under  the  banner  of  your  spread  renown  ! 
Or  if  these  levies  of  impuissant  rhyme 
Fall  to  the  overthrow  of  assaulting  Time, 
Yet  this  one  page  shall  fend  oblivion's  shame 
Armed  with  your  crested  and  prevailing  name. 

236 


A  Dedication 

The  tribute  is  handsomely  conceived  without  any  of  the 
insincerity  that  cowered  behind  the  handsomeness  of 
eighteenth  century  dedications.  It  was  an  occasion  for 
setting  forth  the  humility  which  was  a  very  real  part  of 
Thompson's  character.  In  a  printed  note  the  author 
explains  : — 

"  This  dedication  was  written  while  the  dear  friend 
and  great  Poet  to  whom  it  was  addressed  yet  lived. 
It  is  left  as  he  saw  it — the  last  verses  of  mine  that  were 
ever  to  pass  under  his  eye." 

To  Francis,  Mrs.  Patmore  wrote  just  before  the  pub- 
lication of  the  book  : — 

"  In  to-day's  Register  I  see  that  you  have  decided  to  retain 
the  dedication  of  the  poems  you  are  now  bringing  out  to  my 
husband.  I  cannot  resist  thanking  you  and  also  letting  you 
know  how  much  pleasure  the  mark  of  your  friendship  gave  him 
before  he  died.  He  was  also  looking  forward  to  your  visit  to  him 
with  great  delight." 

Before  the  publication  of  New  Poems  a  preface  was 
written  and  cancelled,  and  a  dozen  titles  mooted  and 
rejected.  In  one  MS.  the  name  Poems,  partly  mystical 
is  followed  by  an  Introduction  : — 

"  This  book  represents  the  work  of  the  three  years 
which  have  elapsed  since  my  first  volume  was  pre- 
pared for  the  press,  my  second  volume  having  been 
a  poem  of  comparatively  early  date.  The  first  section 
exhibits  mysticism  in  a  limited  and  varying  degree.  I 
feel  my  instrument  yet  too  imperfect  to  profane  by  it 
the  higher  ranges.  Much  is  transcendental  rather  than 
truly  mystic.  The  opening  poem  ("The  Mistress  of 
Vision ")  is  a  fantasy  with  no  more  than  an  illusive 
tinge  of  psychic  significance.  And  of  the  other  poems 
some  are  as  much  science  as  mysticism  !  but  it  is  the 
science  of  the  Future,  not  the  science  of  the  scientist. 

237 


"  New  Poems 


55 


And  since  the  science  of  the  Future  is  the  science  of 
the  Past,  the  outlook  on  the  universe  of  the  "Orient 
Ode,"  for  instance,  is  nearer  the  outlook  of  Ecclesiastes 
than  of,  say,  Professor  Norman  Lockyer.  The  "Orient 
Ode,"  on  its  scientific  side,  must  wait  at  least  fifty 
years  for  understanding.  For  there  was  never  yet  poet, 
beyond  a  certain  range  of  insight,  who  could  not  have 
told  the  scientists  what  they  will  be  teaching  a  hundred 
years  hence.  Science  is  a  Caliban,  only  fit  to  hew  wood 
and  draw  water  for  Prospero  ;  and  it  is  time  Ariel  were 
released  from  his  imprisonment  by  the  materialistic 
Sycorax."  x     In  a  letter  to  Patmore,  he  had  written  : — 

"  The  bits  of  science  that  crop  up  in  your  essays 
remind  me  of  little  devils  dancing  among  rose  trees." 

The  list  of  possible  titles  insists  upon  his  regard  for 
one  aspect  of  his  later  work  : — Songs  of  the  Inner  Life  ; 
Odes  and  other  Poems  ;  New  Things  and  Old ;  Songs  of  a 
Sun-worshipper  ;  Music  of  the  Future  ;  Night  before  Light ; 
At  the  Orient  Gates ;  The  Dawn  before  the  D ay-Star.  In 
the  event  New  Poems  was  chosen  ;  and  on  the  eve  of 
publication,  F.  T,  writes  to  W.  M.  : — 

"  Herewith  I  send  the  book.  Now,  if  Alice  and  you, 
after  you  have  read  it  in  proof,  say  '  this  is  bad  poetry,'  I 
will  cut  out  half  the  book ;  but  not  half  a  line  to  please  a 
publisher's  whim  for  little  books  and  big  margins.  I  was 
cabined  and  confined  over  my  first  book  ;  with  my  spurs 
won,  I  should  be  at  liberty  to  make  the  book  compre- 
hensive. It  will  be  a  book  as  long  as  the  Unknown  Eros, 
for  if  the  Unknown  Eros  has  about  twenty  more  poems, 

1  "  Many  a  bit  of  true  seeing  I  have  had  to  learn  again,  through  science 
having  sophisticated  my  eye,  inward  or  outward.  And  many  a  bit  I  have 
preserved,  to  the  avoidance  of  a  world  of  trouble,  by  concerning  myself  no 
more  than  any  child  about  the  teachings  of  science.  Especially  is  this  the 
case  in  regard  to  light.  I  never  lost  the  child's  instinctive  Tightness  of  out- 
look upon  light  because  I  flung  the  scientific  theories  aside  as  so  much 
baffling  distortion  of  perspective.  '  Here  is  cart  for  horse,'  I  felt  rather  than  saw, 
and  would  nothing  with  them.  .  .  .  Though  scientists  in  camp  stand  together 
against  me,  I  would  not  challenge  the  consensus  of  the  poets." 

238 


The  Contents  Table 

none  of  them  are  so  long  as  one  half-dozen  of  mine. 
Treated  in  the  sumptuous  style,  it  would  make  a  book 
about  the  size  of  Rossetti's  first  volume ;  but  there  is  no 
reason  why  it  should  be  got  up  more  than  just  well  and 
simply.  I  believe  it  will  be  my  last  volume  of  poetry — 
in  any  case  my  last  for  some  years — and  I  am  deter- 
mined to  make  it  complete,  that  I  may  feel  all  my  work 
worth  anything  is  on  record  for  posterity,  if  I  die.  .  .  . 
I  have  sacrificed  something  to  the  levity  of  the  critics. 
I  have  put  a  whole  section  of  the  lightest  poems  I  ever 
wrote  after  the  first  terribly  trying  section,  to  soothe 
the  critics'  gums.  If  they  are  decent  to  the  measure  of 
their  slight  aim,  that  is  all  I  care  for ;  they  aimed  little 
at  poetry.  That  they  are  true  to  girl-nature  I  have  a 
woman's  certificate,  besides  the  fact  that  I  studied  them 
— with  one  exception — from  an  actual  original.  .  .  . 
Again  I  have  put  a  batch  of  four  'simple'  poems  at  the 
opening  of  the  miscellaneous  section  to  catch  the 
critical  eye,  though  their  importance  is  not  such  as  to 
give  them  a  place  so  prominent.  So  I  have  done  what 
artifice  could  do  to  lighten  a  very  stern,  sober,  and  diffi- 
cult volume.  'Tis  more  varied  in  range  than  my  former 
work ;  and  by  my  arrangement  I  have  done  my  best 
to  emphasize  and  press  into  service  this,  the  solitary 
redeeming  fact  from  the  popular  standpoint. 

"  From  the  higher  standpoint  I  have  gained,  I  think, 
in  art  and  chastity  of  style  ;  but  have  greatly  lost  in 
fire  and  glow.  'Tis  time  that  I  was  silent.  This  book 
carries  me  quite  as  far  as  my  dwindling  strength  will 
allow  ;  and  if  I  wrote  further  in  poetry,  I  should  write 
down  my  own  fame." 

New  Poems  found  the  critics,  in  1897,  more  hostile 
than  before.  Perhaps  the  Saturday  Review  was  the 
most  severe  : — 

"  He  has  been,  from  the  first,  unfortunate  in  being  shielded 
from  sincere  criticism.     He  has  been  persuaded  by  his  friends  that 

239 


"  New  Poems 


55 


he  is  a  genius,  divinely  inspired,  whose  wildest  utterances  are  his 
best.  ...  In  no  poet  of  reputation  is  it  (order)  more  strikingly 
absent  than  in  Mr.  Thompson.  Beautiful  fancy,  sonorous  and 
picturesque  diction  we  find  here,  indeed,  but  no  motive  power. 
These  odes  begin  on  one  key,  are  shifted  to  another,  take  up  a 
fresh  subject,  drop  it,  and,  at  length,  as  if  merely  wearied  of  their 
aimless  flight,  drop  suddenly,  and  cease  in  the  air." 

"  These,  and  the  rest,  are  nonsense-verses,"  the  same 
writer  says  of  "The  Mistress  of  Vision,"  but  finds  else- 
where "a  touch  of  genuine  sublimity."  The  former  British 
Review  picks  out  several  examples  of  "his  barbarous 
jargon "  (a  phrase  also  used  by  Home  of  Meredith's 
"  Song  of  Queen  Theodolinda  ")  and  prescribes  for  him 
Ben  Jonson's  pill  for  the  poetaster  and  that  he  be 
shaken  free  of  "the  praises  with  which  his  friends  now 
mislead  him."  The  Literary  World  also  sees  need  of 
doctoring,  saying,  "  Nothing  can  be  stronger  than  his 
language,  nothing  weaker  than  the  impression  it  leaves 
on  the  mind.  ...  It  is  like  a  dictionary  of  obsolete 
English  suffering  from  a  fierce  fit  of  delirium  tremens." 
The  Critic,  of  New  York,  takes  Thompson's  ignorance 
of  religion  and  symbolism  for  granted  ;  the  Times  finds 
fault  with  both  his  poetry  and  Catholicism  ;  the  Morning 
Post  is  unfavourable  ;  the  Daily  Chronicle,  the  Speaker, 
and  the  Guardian  all  begin  severely  but  leave  scolding 
before  they  ended  to  give  generous  praise.  The  Sheffield 
Daily  Telegraph  was  handsome.  The  poet's  obscurity 
was  the  chief  cause  of  displeasure,  since  from  thinking 
a  man's  meanings  difficult  it  is  fatally  easy  to  go  on 
to  say  he  is  meaningless.  The  case  they  make  is  start- 
lingly  good  ;  one  reaches  for  one's  Thompson  from  the 
shelves  to  see  if  he  is  in  truth  so  great  as  one  had 
thought  before  spending  an  hour  with  his  early  critics. 
If  one  pauses  before  quoting  them,  it  is  not  for  fear  of 
dealing  unkindly  with  them.  They  are  convincing  ;  only 
the   Thompson   of    scraps    they    condemn   is    not    the 

240 


"A  Terrible  Poem" 

Thompson  we  know  by  the  book.  When  the  Pall 
Mall  says 

"There  is  a  terrible  poem  called  fThe  Anthem  of  Earth' 
without  form  and  void,  rhvmeless  and  the  work  of  a  mediaeval  and 
pedantic  Walt  Whitman," 

the  point  may  be  conceded,  as  between  that  particular 
critic  and  his  particular  Thompson;  it  is  even  possible 
to  share  with  the  Pall  Mall  its  "  deep-rooted  irritability" 
when  one  has  to  contemplate  on  its  pages  tortuous  and 
steep  passages  torn  from  their  text. 

Against  the  adverse  may  be  set  many  good  criticisms. 
Mr.  Richard  Whiteing  wrote  finely  in  the  Daily  News, 
for  he  cleared  the  hurdle  of  initial  distaste — "  It  is  idle 
to  throw  the  book  to  the  other  end  of  the  room.  You 
have  to  pick  it  up  again."  He  hates  such  "  outrageous 
conceits"  as  "The  world's  unfolded  blossom  smells  of 
God  " ;  or  "  Soul  fully  blest  to  feel  God  whistle  thee  at 
heel."  It  is  the  old  hatred,  probably,  of  overhearing 
the  "little  language"  of  lovers  or  whispered  prayers. 
But  Mr.  Whiteing  admits  that  "to  put  him  in  order 
might  only  be  to  spoil  him.     He  must  have  his  way." 

In  the  Speaker,  Sir  A.  T.  Quiller-Couch,  after  com- 
menting, as  usual,  on  the  precipitate  and  defiant  eulogies 
of  the  poet's  "friends,"  continued  : — 

"...  On  the  other  hand,  to  be  stung  into  denying  that  he  is 
a  poet,  and  an  extraordinarily  fine  one,  is  to  lose  one's  head  just 
as  wildly  and  less  pardonably.  ...  Of  '  The  Mistress  of  Vision,' 
I  can  only  say  that  it  recalls,  after  many  days,  the  wonder  and 
delight  with  which  as  a  boy  I  first  read  '  Kubla  Khan.'  " 

The  Daily  Chronicle,  where  Mr.  Le  Gallienne  had  given 
place  to  Mr.  Archer,  on  a  first  reading,  recognised  "  a 
man  of  imagination  all  compact,  a  seer  and  singer  of 
rare  genius";  the  Athencsum  "a  singular  mastery  of 
verse  "  ;  the  Edinburgh,  with  ponderous  speed,  "  a  great 
poet,"  and  the  Academy  and  Bookman  gave  handsome 

241  Q 


"  New  Poems  " 

welcomes.  Notwithstanding  these,  the  impression  on 
public  and  poet  was  discouraging.  The  book  sold  badly, 
and  soon  died,  so  that  for  the  first  half  of  the  year  in 
1901  it  brought  in  six  shillings'  worth  of  royalties  :  four 
copies  had  been  sold.  During  the  first  half  of  1902  the 
book  found  five  buyers. 

F.  T.  so  far  felt  depressed  by  the  bulk  of  adverse 
criticism  as  to  write  his  thanks  to  one  of  the  few  kindly 
reviewers  of  the  new  book.  He  got  in  answer,  June  7, 
1897  : — 

"  I  simply  expressed  (very  inadequately)  the  pleasure  your  work 
had  given  me,  without  the  least  thought  as  to  what  anyone  else 
thought  or  might  think.  That,  however,  is  not  strictly  true. 
Your  letter  reminds  me  that  I  read  some  extracts  to  a  friend,  and 
then  said,  '  This  is  not  work  which  can  possibly  be  popular  in  the 
wide  sense  ;  but  it  is  work  that  will  be  read  and  treasured  centuries 
hence  by  those  who  really  care  for  poetry.'  This  comes  back  to 
me  as  you  speak  of  the  reaction.  I  assure  you  no  conceivable 
reaction  can  wipe  out  or  overlay  such  work  as  yours.  It  is  firm 
based  on  the  rock  of  absolute  beauty ;  and  this  I  say  all  the  more 
confidently  because  it  does  not  happen  to  appeal  to  my  own  specu- 
lative, or  even  my  own  literary,  prejudices. — Yours  very  truly, 

William  Archer." 

Later  F.  T.  met  Mr.  Archer  casually  at  Mr.  Doubleday's 
house  in  Westminster,  and  his  poetry  and  portrait 
figured  in  Mr.  Archer's  Poets  of  the   Younger  Generation. 

He  was  not  put  out  of  humour  by  small  royalties  : — 

"  Dear  Wilfrid, — It  strikes  me  that  the  cheque 
(2/1 1)  has  a  very  unseemly  tail,  which  would  be  much 
improved  by  a  piece  grafted  on  to  it,  to  give  it  a  trifle 
more  handsome  proportions.  Perhaps  the  thing  might 
not  be  impossible  to  a  patient  operator  (to  speak  ex- 
medical-studently). — Yours  ever,  F.  T." 

He  could  be  tragic  too.  His  interruption  during  a 
reading  of  "Othello"  at  our  house  is  never  to  be 
forgotten.    Desdemona  was  in   death  agony,  when  an 

242 


Mr.   Garvin  to  the  Rescue 

emphatic  voice  proclaimed : — "  Here's  a  go,  Mrs. 
Meynell  ;  I  have  lost  my  Athenceum  cheque."  But  he 
found  it  in  another  pocket. 

If  buffers  had  been  needed  between  the  unfavourable 
reception  of  New  Poems  and  the  sensibility  of  the  author 
they  were  supplied  at  this  time  by  Mr.  Garvin's  splendid 
appreciation  of  his  previous  works,  Poems  and  Sister 
Songs,  in  the  Bookman,  March  1897: — 

"  Even  with  the  greatest  pages  of  Sister  Songs  sounding  in  one's 

ears,  one  is  sometimes  tempted  to  think  the  '  Hound  of  Heaven ' 

Mr.  Thompson's  high-water  mark  for  unimaginable  beauty  and 

tremendous  import — if  we  do  damnably  iterate  Mr.  Thompson's 

tremendousness,  we  cannot  help  it,  he  thrusts  the  word  upon  us. 

We  do  not  think  we  forget  any  of  the  splendid  things  of  an  English 

anthology  when  we  say  that  the  '  Hound  of  Heaven'  seems  to  us,  on 

the  whole,  the  most  wonderful  lyric  (if  we  consider  Sister  Songs  as 

a  sequence  of  lyrics)  in  the  language.     It  fingers  all  the  stops  of 

the  spirit,  and  we  hear  now  a  thrilling  and  dolorous  note  of  doom 

and  now  the  quiring  of  the  spheres  and  now  the  very  pipes  of  Pan, 

but  under  all  the  still  sad  music  of  humanity.     It  is  the  return  of 

the  nineteenth  century  to  Thomas  a  Kempis.     In  Sister  Songs  Mr. 

Thompson  has  passed  from  agonies  to  exultations.     Of  pure  power 

he  had  not  more  to  reveal.     But  Sister  Songs  has  the  very  sense  of 

Spring  :    there  is  some  lovely  renaissance  of  spirit  in  the  book,  a 

melting  of  snows  and  all  dewy  germinations  of  delight.     What 

rhythms  are  so  lissome  and  persuasive  as  those  of  the  first  part  ? 

In  dainty  and  debonair  invention  it  is  altogether  incomparable. 

Sister  Songs  opens  with  all  the  lyrical  e'lan  of  Shelley  perfectly 

married  with  the  full  and  definite  vision,  the  pure  and  vivid  phrase 

of  Keats.     Thus  in  two  of  Mr.  Thompson's  many  passages  on 

childhood — 

Or  if  white-handed  light 
Draw  thee  yet  dripping  from  the  quiet  pools, 

Still  lucencies  and  cools, 
Of  sleep,  which  all  night  mirror  constellate  dreams  ; 

and  again — 

.  .  .  bubbles  from  the  calyces 
Of  the  lovely  thoughts  that  breathe, 
Paving  like  water-flowers  thy  spirit's  floor  beneath. 

243 


"  New  Poems 


•>■> 


"  The  second  part  of  Sister  Songs  is  in  a  greater  mood.  It  is 
the  high  ritual  of  beauty,  a  very  apocalypse  of  poetry,  and  one 
should  only  labour  the  futility  of  terms  in  attempting  to  praise  it. 
The  primary  things  of  poetry  are  newly  and  immortally  said. 
But  Mr.  Thompson's  receptive  mind  is  saturated  with  modern 
thought,  and  he  uses  it  in  a  singular  way  to  deepen  the  ancient 
interpretations.  He  touches  Darwinism,  and  it  becomes  trans- 
mutable  in  a  lovely  and  poignant  lyric — 

In  pairing-time,  we  know,  the  bird 
Kindles  to  its  deepmost  splendour, 

And  the  tender 
Voice  is  tenderest  in  its  throat. 

"  May  we  not  dare  to  say  of  this  passage  (beginning — '  Wild 
Dryad  !  all  unconscious  of  thy  tree  '  in  Sister  Songs)  that  it  almost 
arrives  at  that  ultimate  thing,  that  '  one  thought,  one  grace,  one 
wonder  at  the  least,'  which  for  Marlowe  was  beyond  the  furthest 
reach  of  words,  and  which  poets  have  been  seeking  to  declare  from 
the  beginning  of  song  ?  Mr.  Thompson's  poetry  scarcely  comes 
by  way  of  the  outward  eye  at  all.  He  scarcely  depends  upon 
occasions.  In  a  dungeon  one  imagines  that  he  would  be  no  less  a 
poet.  The  regal  air,  the  prophetic  ardours,  the  apocalyptic  vision, 
the  supreme  utterance — he  has  them  all.  A  rarer,  more  intense, 
more  strictly  predestinate  genius  has  never  been  known  to  poetry. 
To  many  this  may  well  appear  the  simple  delirium  of  over-emphasis. 
The  writer  signs  for  those  others,  nowise  ashamed,  who  range  after 
Shakespeare's  very  Sonnets  the  poetry  of  a  living  poet,  Francis 
Thompson." 


244 


CHAPTER    XII:    FRIENDS   AND    OPINIONS 

The  friends  he  found  for  distraction  in  London  were 
few,  his  acquaintances  still  fewer  ;  thus  his  biographer, 
in  falling  back  on  such  slight  records  as  would  go  un- 
noticed in  a  life  more  thickly  peopled,  believes  that  they 
have  at  any  rate  the  value  of  rarity. 

But  in  any  case  the  chapter  of  his  meetings  could  be 
more  than  matched  with  the  chapter  of  his  evasions. 
Thus  ran  the  excuses  : — 

"Dear  Wilfrid,  I  could  not  come  in  to  tea  with 
Blunt  and  Yeats,  for  I  had  to  go  down  to  the  Academy, 
and  was  back  much  too  late.  Had  I  known  on 
Thursday  I  would  have  altered  my  arrangements  so 
as  to  accept  your  invitation.  I  am  very  sorry  to  have 
missed  this  chance  of  meeting  Yeats,  as  I  have  long 
desired  to  do.     You  know  I  heartily  admire  his  work." 

Meredith's  invitations  he  could  not  permanently 
resist.  At  Box  Hill  he  spent  a  night  in  June  1896. 
Meredith  had  written  to  A.  M.,  "  You  and  the  poet  will 
have  Heaven's  welcome  to  the  elect.  But  the  cottage 
will  be  wounded  if  you  desire  not  to  sleep  in  it  after 
having  tried  its  poor  resources.  Be  kind."  To  dine 
and  sleep  and  wake  in  that  small  cottage  was  to  be  at 
very  close  quarters  with  nature  and  a  man.  With  birds 
at  the  window,  trees  bowing  and  rustling  at  the  back 
door,  and  at  the  front  the  vivid  grass  ready  for  his  feet, 
Francis  was  thrust  into  the  presence  of  a  showy  bit  of 
nature,  and  was  hardly  more  easy  than  if  he  had  been 
thrust  at  the  theatre  into  a  box  directly  adjoining  a 
crowded   stage.       He    would   pull   at   his   necktie,   and 

245 


Friends  and  Opinions 

smooth  his  coat,  and  be  most  warily  conscious  of  his 
companion's  eye,  microscopic,  like  a  husband's,  for  de- 
fect. The  singing  of  Meredith's  blackbirds  would  be 
no  less  confusing  than  the  stream  of  Meredith's  talk  ; 
the  nodding  flowers  and  the  thousand  shadows,  the 
sunshine  and  the  talker,  were  too  strange  to  him.  For 
years  he  had  evaded  nature  and  an  eye  ;  here  he  was 
forced  to  be  seen  and  to  see  in  the  unclouded  at- 
mosphere of  this  garden  on  a  hill,  and  during  a  long 
drive.  Talk  and  caviare  for  breakfast  were  alike  foreign 
to  him,  who  never  breakfasted  even  on  toast.  To  be  on 
tremendously  good  terms  with  Nature  for  her  own  sake, 
with  talk  for  its  own  sake,  with  French  literature,  with 
the  Celt,  was  Meredith's  triumph  ;  Thompson  was  shy 
of  all  these. 

Meredith's  method  was  one  of  acceptance,  of  bird's 
song  and  of  Burgundy.  Thompson's  method  was  of 
refusal  because  he  was  not  hardy  enough  for  one  or  the 
other.  With  that  mixture  of  precision  and  involved 
evasion  that  was  his  habit,  Meredith  praised  "  Love  in 
Dian's  Lap,"  quoting  the  lines — 

And  on  this  lady's  heart,  looked  you  so  deep, 
Poor  Poetry  has  rocked  himself  to  sleep  ; 
Upon  the  heavy  blossom  of  her  lips 
Hangs  the  bee  Musing  ;  nigh  her  lids  eclipse 
Each  half-occulted  star  beneath  that  lies  ; 
And  in  the  contemplation  of  those  eyes, 
Passionless  passion,  wild  tranquillities. 

The  lady,  too,  was  in  the  garden  to  hear. 

In  his  written  comments  on  Poems,  Meredith  had 
fastened  on  the  misprinted  passages  as  if  they  were 
evidences  of  the  wilfulness  of  the  poet,  and  he  recalled 
these  in  talk,  slow  to  relinquish  an  opportunity  for  his 
golden  chaff.  With  the  Edinburgh  praise  of  Thompson 
he  proclaimed  himself  in  agreement,  writing  (July  19, 
1896)  "  I   subscribe  to  the  words  on   Francis   Thomp- 

246 


Meredith 

son's  verse."  But  he  also  called  Thompson  turgid, 
on  the  eve  of  passing  to  the  writing  of  his  own 
ode  on  the  French  Revolution ;  Sister  Songs  he  had 
called  at  first  sight  a  "voluntary." 

He  discovered  no  consecutive  argument  in  Sister 
Songs;  but  for  his  banter  he  found  an  immediate 
opening ;  he  invented  a  landlady  for  Thompson — 
Amelia  Applejohn — to  whom  imaginary  sonnets  were 
addressed.  He  told  how  Amelia  was  summoned  to 
Thompson's  room  to  listen  to  the  latest,  rolling  down 
her  sleeves  the  while,  and  brushing  the  flour  from 
her  elbows. 

After  Thompson's  death,  Meredith  wrote  to  W.  M. : — 

"Box  Hill,  February  3,  1909. 

"  Dear  Mr.  Meynell, — The  love  of  all  the  Meynells,  let  all 
the  Meynells  know,  is  precious  to  me.  And  the  book  of  the  poems 
{Selected  Poems)  was  very  welcome,  though  a  thought  of  the 
poet's  broken  life  gives  pain.  What  he  might  further  have  done 
hangs  at  the  closing  page.  Your  part  in  his  history  should  help 
to  comfort  you.  What  we  have  of  him  is  mainly  due  to  the  Meynell 
family. 

Our  Portia  I  may  suppose  to  be  now  in  Italy,  and  Italy 
seems  to  me  her  natural  home.  For  me,  I  drag  on,  counting  more 
years  and  not  knowing  why.  I  have  to  have  an  arm  when  I  would 
walk.  I  am  humiliated  by  requiring  at  times  a  repetition  of 
sentences.  This  is  my  state  of  old  age.  But  my  religion  of  life 
is  always  to  be  cheerful ;  though  I  see  little  of  my  friends,  I  live 
with  them. — Ever  to  be  counted  yours, 

George  Meredith." 

One  of  the  few  occasions  on  which  Francis  entered  a 
friend's  house  (always  excepting  W.  M.'s)  in  London 
was  when,  in  December  1896,  he  spent  some  weeks  with 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Doubleday.  Like  a  little  boy,  he  posted 
word  to  W.  M.,  as  to  a  father,  across  the  few  intervening 
miles  of  London,  of  his  safe  arrival  there,  of  his  friend's 
kindness,  and  of   his   admiration   of   Mrs.  Doubleday's 

247 


Friends  and  Opinions 

music  making  : — "  Mrs.  Doubleday  is  very  kind,  and  she 
is  a  simply  exquisite  pianist.  Doubleday  and  I  have 
fraternised  over  music." 

"  My  friend  Alfred  Hayes,"  he  used  to  say,  almost 
with  ostentation.  And  the  phrase  remains  because  he 
so  rarely  proclaimed  or  could  proclaim  a  relationship  of 
the  sort.  That  he  paid  a  visit  and  wrote  letters  and 
verses  to  Mr.  Hayes  were,  even  if  he  forgot  to  despatch 
one  of  the  letters,  unusual  marks  of  consideration.  The 
visit  planned,  it  followed  that  he  did  not  turn  up  in  the 
expected  way,  so  that  his  host,  in  his  anxiety,  asked 
W.  M.  for  news,  and  later  wrote : — 

"20  Carpenter  Road,  Edgbaston, 
October  13,  1896. 

"  Dear  Mr.  Meynell, — I  am  very  sorry  that,  as  all  turned 
out  well,  I  wrote  to  you  in  some  apprehension  as  to  Thompson. 
He  turned  up  at  the  wrong  railway-station  and  performed  some 
other  singular  feats,  but  those  were  mere  details,  and  we  enjoyed 
his  visit  very  much.  I  hope  it  did  him  good  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  owing  to  its  happening  to  be  a  very  busy  week  for  me  at  the 
office,  I  was  obliged  to  leave  him  a  good  deal  to  his  own  devices, 
which  consisted  mainly  in  smoking  innumerable  pipes  over  the 
books  he  found  in  my  study.  The  weather  was  so  forbidding  that 
we  were  only  able  to  make  two  excursions  afield.  I  hope  he  will 
come  again  in  the  summer  when  no  infant  daughter  must  again 
bar  the  way. — Yours,  Alfred  Hayes." 

Mr.  Hayes  gives  me  a  reminiscence  of  his  guest : — 

"  In  the  Autumn  of  the  year  1896  Francis  Thompson  was  my 
guest  for  a  week  at  Edgbaston.  The  evenings  were  veritable 
Nodes  Ambrosiance  ;  but  though  the  general  impression  of  deep 
insight  and  opulent  imagination,  of  many  a  flash  of  inspiration 
and  radiant  turn  of  speech,  lingers  as  a  precious  recollection,  the 
details  of  his  conversation  have  vanished,  for  the  most  part,  from 
memory,  as  completely  as  the  precise  hues  and  cloud-shapes  of 
the  sunsets  of  those  memorable  days. 

"  One  indelible  impression,  however,  remains — his  amazing 
range  of  reading,  the  infallibility  of  his  literary  memory,  and  the 
consequent  wealth  of  allusion  he  had  at  his  command. 

248 


4  My   Friend  Hayes" 


"  At  meals  he  would  sit  mostly  silent,  sometimes  quitting  the 
table,  his  food  half  consumed,  as  if  at  some  imperious  mandate, 
but  somehow  without  leaving  behind  him  the  slightest  suspicion 
of  discourtesy.  These  sudden  disappearances,  whose  cause  I 
never  sought  to  discover,  soon  came  to  be  expected,  and  only  pro- 
voked a  smile — it  was  Thompson's  way.  But  let  it  not  be  sup- 
posed that  he  was  uncouth  or  affected  ;  his  manner  was  that  of  a 
great  child  ;  he  was  simply  incapable  of  pose  or  unkindness. 

"  His  personal  appearance  is  deeply  engraved  on  the  tablets 
of  my  memory.  He  was  a  pathetic  figure.  His  form  and  face 
bore,  only  too  clearly,  the  marks  of  those  grim  years  of  tribulation 
of  soul  and  torment  of  body  from  which  he  had  so  recently  been 
delivered.  His  appearance  smote  me  with  deep  pity,  but  even 
deeper  respect ;  and  within  a  few  hours  he  had  won  my  affection. 
I  was  struck,  as  were  the  few  intimate  friends  who  once  met  him 
at  my  house,  with  a  strange  other-worldliness  about  him,  as  if  he 
were  conscious  of  making  only  a  hasty  sojourn  on  earth  in  the  course 
of  an  illimitable  journey.  ...  I  remember  how  the  discoloured 
face  would  suddenly  light  up,  and  the  dazed  eyes  flash,  in  such 
moments  of  happy  excitement,  as  if  a  volcanic  eruption  of  delight 
had  broken  through  the  crust  of  his  soul.  He  gave  me  the  im- 
pression of  concealing  within  him  two  inexhaustible  reservoirs  of 
sorrow  and  joy ;  ebullitions  from  each  appear  in  his  poetry  ;  but 
in  his  long  talks  with  me  he  rarely  drew  except  from  the  fountain 
of  joy." 

Some  time  after  this  visit  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Hayes  of 
his  journalism,  his  book,  and  his  desire  to  see  his  friend 
again  : — 

"  I  met  Norman  Gale,  for  a  brief  moment,  at  my 
publishers',  in  January  or  thereabouts.  I  was  charmed 
with  him.  Alas,  I  am  farther  off  from  you  than  ever ; 
it  is  not  likely  that  I  can  visit  you  again  for  an  unknown 
time  to  come.  And  I  entertain  such  a  happy  recollection 
of  you,  your  dear  wife,  and  your  charming  children  ! 
Let  us  pray  for  the  unexpected,  which  always  happens, 
you  know  ! — Always  yours,  dear  Hayes, 

Francis  Thompson. 

°  I  am  very  busy,  or  I  would  write  at  more  length  to 
you.     Believe  me,  that  I  do  not  forget  you  ever." 

249 


Friends  and  Opinions 

From  her  invalid's  couch  Mrs.  Hamilton  King  sent 
Francis  treasured  messages  of  trust  and  commenda- 
tion, and,  guessing  his  need,  wrote  him  many  things 
that  sounded  bravely  to  one  who  accused  himself  of 
something  worse  than  futility  in  friendship  : — 

"It  is  true  that  everyone  must  live  out  his  own  life,  and  I  am 
not  sure  that  it  is  good  that  another  should  live  it  for  him  ;  but  you 
at  least  have  done  much  for  your  friends.  Coventry  Patmore 
relied  on  you ;  and  when  I  last  saw  Mr.  Wilfrid  Meynell  he  told 
me  that  both  he  and  Mrs.  Meynell  felt  themselves  entirely  your 
debtors — your  poetry  was  so  much  for  them.  And  you  may  have 
much  more  to  do.  I  wish  it  were  possible  for  you  to  live  nearer 
and  within  reach  of  your  friends.  ...  It  is  a  great  consolation  to 
feel  that  one  has  ministered  to  the  most  sensitive  and  precious 
among  the  children  of  God,  and  also  it  is  a  great  joy  and  privilege 
to  me  to  have  your  friendship." 

Between  1896  and  1900  he  also  had  correspondence 
with  one  who  was  especially  his  friend,  Miss  Katharine 
Douglas  King,  Mrs.  Hamilton  King's  daughter.  Before 
meeting  her  he  had  written  to  W.  M. : — 

"  Do  you  know  that  Miss  K.  Douglas  King  is — to- 
gether with  Winifred  Lucas — one  of  the  few  women 
I  ever  desired  particularly  to  meet  ?  She  has  a  tempera- 
ment of  genius  heaped  up  and  running  over.  I  read 
through  all  her  Merry  England  stories  some  months 
ago,  and  was  startled  by  their  individual  and  impressive 
note." 

Her  book,  The  CJiild  who  will  never  Grow  Old,  pub- 
lished two  years  later,  bears  on  its  first  page  his  line, 
"The  heart  of  Childhood,  so  divine  for  me."  Miss 
King  played  with  the  Palace  Court  children,  and  worked 
among  the  poor  children  of  the  East  End  who  often 
figure  in  her  stories.  Francis  once  visited  her  and  her 
charges  at  the  hospital  in  Leonard  Square.  Writing  sub- 
sequently, Miss  King  says  : — 

"  I  count  you  as  an  old  friend,  but  I  know  now  I  did  not  really 
know  you  until  Saturday.    When  you  were  by  your  little  '  genius's  ' 

250 


With  Sick  Children 

— Harry's — bed,  and  the  baby  boy  Percy  with  the  white  shoes  was 
at  your  knee,  that  was  to  me  a  revelation  !  I  think  of  you  now 
with  that  infant's  serious,  confiding  face  upturned  to  you.  It  was 
all  so  natural.  To  some  people  a  child  is  a  pretty  ornamental 
addition.  Your  personality  now  seems  incomplete  without  the 
child  as  the  natural  and  exquisite  finish  to  the  whole  man.  Adieu, 
dear  friend." 

A  later  letter  announces  her  impending  marriage  : — 

"Forest  Hall,  April  1900. 

"  My  dear  Francis, — I  have  been  wanting  to  write  to  you  for 
so  long,  and  yet  have  not  been  able  to  find  time  until  now ;  and 
now  I  find  it  a  little  difficult,  because  one  feels  reluctant  to  speak 
of  one's  own  great  happiness  to  one  whose  life  has  been  so  sad 
and  lonely  as  yours,  even  though  that  one  should  be  so  firm 
and  true  a  friend  as  you  have  ever  been  to  me.  My  marriage 
is  fixed  for  the  early  part  of  July.  Although  my  new  home 
will  be  far  away,  we  both  hope  that  in  time  we  may  come  to 
live  nearer  London,  and  I  hope  that  my  marriage  will  not 
bring  me  less,  but  more,  in  touch  with  my  friends,  amongst 
whom,  Francis,  I  hope  that  I  may  ever  count  you  as  one  of  the 
first  and  nearest,  and  may  God  bless  you. — Believe  me,  Your 
always  affectionately,  Katharine  D.  King. 


>> 


It  was  after  this  that  he  wrote  the  following  descrip- 
tion of  his  friend  : — 

"  There  is  no  need  of  courage  in  the  feminine  woman, 
and  I  love  her  for  the  fact.  Yet  my  dear  friend  (now 
removed  by  marriage)  was  a  brave  woman,  and  I  loved 
her  for  it  against  all  my  wont.  Perhaps,  because  she 
took  me  by  surprise ;  perhaps  because — who  knows  why  ? 
She  was  not  self-reliant  with  all  her  bravery,  and  I 
suppose  the  combination  made  her  real  femininity  the 
more  piquant.  Perhaps  it  was  rather  her  crystal  truth 
than  the  courage  which  (I  think)  came  from  it,  not 
caused  it,  that  won  me  at  sight.  Truth — integrity  (or 
oneness)  of  nature — is  what  calls  to  me." 

In  the  matter  of  his  close  friendships,  he  wrote  to 

251 


Friends  and  Opinions 

Miss  Agnes  Tobin,1  a  lover  of  his  poetry  and  herself 
a  translator  of  Petrarch's  sonnets  : — 

"  Of  what  you  say  of  me  in  relation  to  your  spiritual 
development  I  dare  not  trust  myself  to  write,  lest  I 
offend  the  modesty  of  words  :  it  comes  as  a  great  prop 
to  a  life  very  lonely  of  support." 

Mrs.  Vernon  Blackburn  is  elsewhere  named ;  but  of 
other  acquaintances  among  women  he  had  none,  or 
only  such  as  lasted  during  one  or  two  meetings.  The 
Duchess  of  Sutherland's  invitations  were  found  re- 
tained among  his  dusty  papers  like  adventurous  Sisters 
of  Charity,  stiff  and  clean  in  the  ragged  company  of  a 
neglected  correspondence,  old  pipes  and  newspaper- 
cuttings. 

The  people  he  did  not  know  yet  counted  for  some- 
thing in  his  history  ;  he  has  been  associated  with  some 
he  might  have  known,  but  did  not,  and  with  others  he 
could  never  have  known.  Oscar  Wilde,  on  hearing  some 
of  Sister  Songs  read  aloud,  said,  "  Why  can't  I  write 
poetry  like  that  ?  That  is  what  I've  wanted  to  do  all  my 
life."  The  two,  however,  did  not  meet.  In  a  letter 
from  Mrs.  Wilde,  January  1895,  I  find,  "  I  so  enjoyed 
Mr.  Thompson's  visit  to  me  on  Friday,"  and  in  another, 
June  1894,  "Oscar  was  quite  charmed  with  the  lines  you 
read  him  of  Francis  Thompson."  "Of  the  living  poets 
whose  work  I  like,  he  is  one  of  the  very  few  whom  I  like 
as  well  as  their  work,"  wrote  Mr.  Vincent  O'Sullivan 
after  meeting  him  at  about  the  same  time. 

Of  the  invitations  he  did  not  accept  were  those  from 
Mrs.  Louise  Chandler  Moulton  that  he  should  sometimes 
go  to  her  "  for  a  quiet  talk  d  deux"  ;  from  Elliot  and  Fry 
that  he  should  be  photographed  "  in  his  study  "  ;  from 
a  World  writer  that  he  should  be  interviewed  as  a  subject 
for  one  of  the  "Celebrities  at  Home." 

1  To  this  lady's  "genius  for  friendship"   the   dedication  of  Mr.  Joseph 
Conrad's  Under  Western  Eyes  bears  witness. 

252 


Mr.   Whitten's  Portrait 

In  1897  Mr.  Lewis  Hind  found  that  the  Academy 
might  welcome  something  every  week  from  Thompson, 
and  wrote  telling  him  so.  Then  he  came  into  touch, 
slowly  as  was  his  way,  with  the  office  staff.  "  I  saw 
what  I  concluded  was  Clarence  Rook  at  the  Academy  on 
Wednesday,  but  we  did  not  even  exchange  a  look,  for 
Hind  did  not  introduce  us.  So  I  left  convinced  that 
Hind  meant  to  get  out  the  Academy  by  hook  or  by 
C.  Rook."  From  this  time  began  his  friendship  with 
Mr.  E.  V.  Lucas  and  Mr.  Wilfred  Whitten.  All  these, 
along  with  the  "  management,"  learnt  how  to  smile  on 
the  trials  provided  by  this  contributor.  Mr.  Lucas  is 
quoted  on  an  earlier  page  devoted  to  cricket.  Mr. 
Whitten  has  written  : — 

"  I  first  met  Francis  Thompson  at  the  Academy  office  in  Chancery 
Lane,  in  1897,  the  year  in  which,  with  his  New  Poems,  he  took  fare- 
well of  poetry  and  began,  I  fear,  to  look  on  life  as  so  much  dead  lift, 
so  much  needless  postscript  to  his  finished  epistle.  .  .  .  We  gave 
Thompson  as  many  books  of  theology,  history,  biography,  and,  of 
course,  poetry  as  he  cared  to  review.  It  was  a  usual  thing,  in  read- 
ing the  proofs,  for  one  of  us  to  exclaim  aloud  on  his  splendid  handling 
of  a  subject  demanding  the  best  literary  knowledge  and  insight. 
Thompson  came  frequently  to  the  office  to  receive  books  for  review, 
and  to  bring  in  his  '  copy.'  Every  visit  meant  a  talk,  which  was 
never  curtailed  by  Thompson.  This  singer,  who  had  soared  to 
themes  too  dazzling  for  all  but  the  rarest  minds  ;  this  poet  of  the 
broken  wing  and  the  renounced  lyre  had  not  become  moody  or  taci- 
turn. At  his  best  he  was  a  fluent  talker,  who  talked  straight  from 
his  knowledge  and  convictions,  yet  never  for  victory.  He  weighed 
his  words,  and  would  not  hurt  a  controversial  fly.  On  great  subjects 
he  was  slow  or  silent ;  on  trifles  he  became  grotesquely  tedious. 
This  dreamer  seemed  to  be  surprised  into  a  kind  of  exhilaration 
at  finding  himself  in  contact  with  small  realities.  And  then  the 
fountains  of  memory  would  be  broken  up,  or  some  quaint  corner 
of  his  amour  propre  would  be  touched.  He  would  explain  nine 
times  what  was  clear,  and  talk  about  snuff  or  indigestion  or  the 
posting  of  a  letter  until  the  room  swam  round  us. 

"  A  stranger  figure  than  Thompson's  was  not  to  be  seen  in 
London.     Gentle  in  looks,  half-wild  in  externals,  his  face  worn  by 

253 


Friends  and  Opinions 

pain  and  the  fierce  reactions  of  laudanum,  his  hair  and  straggling 
beard  neglected,  he  had  yet  a  distinction  and  an  aloofness  of  bear- 
ing that  marked  him  in  the  crowd ;  and  when  he  opened  his  lips 
he  spoke  as  a  gentleman  and  a  scholar.  A  cleaner  mind,  a  more 
naively  courteous  manner,  were  not  to  be  found.  It  was  impos- 
sible and  unnecessary  to  think  always  of  the  tragic  side  of  his  life. 
He  still  had  to  live  and  work  in  his  fashion,  and  his  entries  and 
exits  became  our  most  cheerful  institution.  His  great  brown  cape, 
which  he  would  wear  on  the  hottest  days,  his  disastrous  hat,  and 
his  dozen  neglects  and  make-shifts  were  only  the  insignia  of  our 
4  Francis '  and  of  the  ripest  literary  talent  on  the  paper.  No 
money  (and  in  his  later  years  Thompson  suffered  more  from  the 
possession  of  money  than  from  the  lack  of  it)  could  keep  him  in 
a  decent  suit  of  clothes  for  long.  Yet  he  was  never  '  seedy.'  From 
a  newness  too  dazzling  to  last,  and  seldom  achieved  at  that,  he 
passed  at  once  into  a  picturesque  nondescript  garb  that  was  all  his 
own  and  made  him  resemble  some  weird  pedlar  or  packman  in  an 
etching  by  Ostade.  This  impression  of  him  was  helped  by  the 
strange  object — his  fish-basket,  we  called  it — which  he  wore  slung 
round  his  shoulders  by  a  strap.  It  had  occurred  to  him  that  such 
a  basket  would  be  a  convenient  receptacle  for  the  books  which  he 
took  away  for  review,  and  he  added  this  touch  to  an  outward 
appearance  which  already  detached  him  from  millions.  ...  He 
had  ceased  to  make  demands  on  life.  He  ear-marked  nothing  for 
his  own.  As  a  reviewer,  enjoying  the  run  of  the  office,  he  never 
pounced  on  a  book  ;  he  waited,  and  he  accepted.  Interested  still 
in  life,  he  was  no  longer  intrigued  by  it.  He  was  free  from  both 
apathy  and  desire.  Unembittered,  he  kept  his  sweetness  and  sanity, 
his  dewy  laughter,  and  his  fluttering  gratitude.  In  such  a  man 
outward  ruin  could  never  be  pitiable  or  ridiculous,  and,  indeed,  he 
never  bowed  his  noble  head  but  in  adoration.  I  think  the  secret 
of  his  strength  was  this  :  that  he  had  cast  up  his  accounts  with 
God  and  man,  and  thereafter  stood  in  the  mud  of  earth  with  a 
heart  wrapt  in  such  fire  as  touched  Isaiah's  lips." 

He  had  no  valet  of  whom  to  make  a  conquest ;  but 
a  friendly  editor,  at  any  rate,  was  at  his  feet,  even  when 
they  were  unpunctual.     Mr.  Lewis  Hind  writes  : — 

"  During  the  seven  years  that  I  edited  the  Academy,  I  knew 
the  poet  intimately,  seeing  him  two  or  three  times  a  week.  It 
amused  him  to  write  articles,  and  to  know  that  his  landlady  was 

254 


In  Chancery   Lane 


being  paid,  although  such  matters  were  of  no  real  importance  to 
him ;  but  the  weekly  wage  gave  him  pocket-money  to  buy  the 
narcotics  of  his  choice,  and  that  was  important. 

"  In  memory  I  see  him  one  miserable  November  afternoon 
communing  with  the  Seraphim,  and  frolicking  with  the  young- 
eyed  Cherubim  in  Chancery  Lane.  The  roads  were  ankle-deep  in 
slush  ;  a  thin,  icy  rain  was  falling  ;  the  yellow  fog  enwrapped  the 
pedestrians  squelching  down  the  lane  ;  and,  going  through  them  in 
a  narrow-path,  I  saw  Francis  Thompson,  wet  and  mud-spattered. 
But  he  was  not  unhappy.  What  is  a  day  of  unpleasant  weather 
to  one  who  lives  in  eternity  ?  His  lips  were  moving,  his  head  was 
raised,  his  eyes  were  humid  with  emotion,  for  above  the  roof  of 
the  Chancery  Lane  Safe  Deposit  Company,  in  the  murk  of  the  fog, 
he  saw  beatific  visions.  They  were  his  reality,  not  the  visible 
world. 

"  He  was  on  his  way  to  the  office  of  the  Academy  with  the 
manuscript  of  a  book  review,  and  on  his  damp  back  was  slung  the 
weather-worn  satchel  in  which  he  would  carry  away  volumes  for 
the  ensuing  week.  A  Thompson  article  in  The  Academy  gave 
distinction  to  the  issue.  What  splendid  prose  it  was  !  Reading 
the  proofs,  we  would  declaim  passages  aloud  for  the  mere  joy  of 
giving  utterance  to  his  periods.  He  wrote  a  series  of  articles  on 
'  Poets  as  Prose  Writers  '  which  must  some  day  be  recovered  from 
the  files  ;  he  wrote  on  anything.  I  discovered  that  his  interest  in 
battles, and  the  strategy  of  great  commanders  was  as  keen  as  his  con- 
cern with  cricket.  So  the  satchel  was  filled  with  military  memoirs, 
and  retired  generals  ensconced  in  the  armchairs  of  service  clubs 
wondered.  Here  was  a  man  who  manipulated  words  as  they 
manipulated  men.  Once  or  twice  in  those  seven  years  of  our  inter- 
course a  flame  of  his  old  poetic  fire  blazed  out,  and  once  I  was  able 
to  divert  the  flame  into  the  pages  of  the  Academy.  When  Cecil 
Rhodes  died  I  telegraphed  to  Thompson  to  hasten  to  the  office. 
That  was  on  a  Monday.  He  appeared  on  the  Tuesday.  I  asked 
him  point  blank  if  he  would  write  an  ode  on  Cecil  Rhodes  for  the 
next  issue  of  the  paper,  and  without  waiting  for  his  refusal  talked 
Rhodes  to  him  for  half  an  hour,  roused  his  enthusiasm,  and  he  de- 
parted with  a  half  promise  to  deliver  the  ode  on  Thursday  morning. 
Thursday  came  and  nearly  passed.  I  sent  him  three  telegrams, 
but  received  no  answer.  It  was  necessary  to  go  to  press  at  eight 
o'clock.  At  half-past  six  he  arrived,  and  proceeded  to  extract 
from  his  pockets  a  dozen  and  more  scraps  of  crumpled  paper,  each 
containing  a  fragment  of  the  ode.    I  pieced  them  together,  sent 

255 


Friends  and   Opinions 

the  blurred  manuscript  to  the  printers,  gave  him  money  for  his 
dinner,  and  exacted  a  promise  that  he  would  return  in  an  hour  to 
read  the  proof.  He  returned  dazed  and  incoherent,  read  the  proof 
standing  and  swaying  as  he  read,  and  murmured  :  '  It's  all  right.' 
It  was  all  right.  I  am  prouder  of  having  published  that  ode  than 
of  anything  else  that  the  Academy  ever  contained.  In  1904, 
when  I  resigned  the  editorship  of  the  Academy,  we  no  longer  met 
regularly ;  but  I  saw  Thompson  at  infrequent  intervals  at  Mrs. 
Meynell's  house.  He  would  come  to  dinner  at  any  hour  that 
suited  his  mood,  take  his  bite  and  sip,  and  pace  the  room  with  a 
book  in  his  hand,  striking  innumerable  matches,  never  keeping 
his  pipe  alight,  rarely  taking  part  in  the  general  conversation,  but 
ever  courteous  and  ever  ready  to  laugh  at  the  slightest  pleasantry." 

Of  his  editor,  and  to  his  editor,  Thompson  writes  : — 

"  39  Goldney  Road,  Harrow  Road, 
Sunday  Night. 

"Dear  Hind, — Since  I  was  betrayed  so  unfortunately 
into  putting  a  hasty  definition  into  clumsy  words,  I  beg 
to  be  allowed  to  define  my  intended  meaning — to  define 
my  definition,  in  fact.  I  called  you,  I  believe,  'a  man  of 
the  world  with  a  taste  for  letters.'  It  would  be  nearer 
my  meaning  if  I  had  called  you  a  man  of  action  with  a 
love  for  letters — and  art.  Wilfrid  Blunt,  Wyndham,  &c, 
are  examples  of  the  class.  I  might  also  say  Henley. 
It  is  true  that  you  no  more  than  Henley  have  ever 
been  a  man  of  action  like  Blunt  or  Wyndham.  Some 
more  inclusive  term  is  needed.  The  essential  thing 
is,  that  life  occupies  the  principal  place  in  your  regard 
— not  life  as  it  should  be  lived,  the  ideal  of  life  in 
other  words — but  actual,  everyday  life,  'life  as  she  is 
lived.'  This  is  foremost,  letters  or  art  second.  Raleigh 
and  a  host  of  the  great  Elizabethans  belonged  to  the 
same  school.  'Man  of  action  first'  is  perhaps  the 
nearest  I  can  get  to  it.  '  Man  of  the  world'  is  bungling 
because  it  bears  so  many  significations.  Anyway,  now, 
I  hope,  you  have  some  idea  of  my  meaning.  It  was  an 
antithesis  between  the  pure  thinker  and  recluse,  on  one 

256 


\ 


A. 


■A. 


c 


//'.'  .  J /it'in/.i.it'ii   i'i'  .f/crt    (J/rci'f 

}JJraii-n   by  <^r,-i  ,irn    <     llftiiictl  .    I  c)  O  j 


Late  Copy 

hand  ;  the  man  interested  in  action  for  its  own  sake,  yet 
with  a  foothold  in  letters,  on  the  other. — Yours  ever, 

F.  T." 

Scruples  in  criticism,  anxiety  over  ten  shillings  over- 
drawn from  the  Academy's  cashier,  and  the  imaginary 
coldness  of  his  editor  in  consequence,  brought  Mr. 
Wilfred  Whitten  letters  a  column  long,  and  though 
abbreviated  (as  most  given  in  this  book  are),  they  are 
sufficiently  characteristic  of  a  profuse  manner  : — 

"Dear  Hind, — I  muddled  up  the  time  altogether  to- 
day. How,  I  do  not  now  understand.  I  started  off 
soon  after  2.  Thinking  I  had  time  for  a  letter  to  the 
Academy  which  it  had  been  in  my  mind  to  write,  I 
delayed  my  journey  to  write  it.  When  I  was  drawing 
to  a  conclusion,  I  heard  the  clock  strike  3  (as  it  seemed 
to  me).  I  thought  I  should  soon  be  finished,  so  went 
on  to  the  end.  A  few  minutes  later,  as  it  appeared,  the 
clock  struck  again,  and  I  counted  4.  Alarmed,  I  rushed 
off — vexed  that  I  should  get  in  by  half-past  4  instead 
of  half-past  3,  as  I  intended — and  finished  the  thing 
in  the  train.  I  got  to  the  Academy,  and  was  struck  all 
of  a  heap.  There  was  nobody  there,  and  it  was  ten 
past  six!  How  I  did  it,  I  do  not  even  now  understand. 
I  will  be  with  you  in  good  time  to-morrow.  But  that 
cannot  make  amends  to  myself  for  such  a  fiasco  and 
waste  of  time. — Yours,  F.  T." 

At  other  times  his  copy  is  late  because  he  has  no 
stamp  ;  or,  thinking  he  has  delivered  an  article,  the  next 
day  he  finds  half  of  it  still  in  his  pocket ;  but  illness  is 
his  stand-by,  his  most  robust  excuse. 

The  two  following  letters  tell  of  books  lost  on  either 

side  : — 

"  16  Elgin  Avenue,  W. 
November  2,  1897. 

"My  dear  Hind, — I  will  do  as  you  wish  about  the 
Crashaw.     I  think  you  are  right,  but  in  the  absence  of 

257  R 


Friends  and  Opinions 

any  notification  I  kept  to  the  stipulated  length  of  two 
columns. 

"  I  received  the  letter  you  forwarded  from  Arthur 
Waugh  ;  but  the  book  which  should  have  accompanied 
it  has  not  been  sent  me.  Will  you  please  see  what  has 
become  of  it,  and  have  it  forwarded  at  once.  I  am 
afraid  it  may  have  got  mixed  with  the  books  for  review ; 
and  it  is  a  book  I  value,  sent  me  as  a  gift  by  Waugh,  in 
recognition  of  my  last  '  Excursion.'  Please  let  the 
matter  be  looked  into  without  delay. 

"  I  am  glad  to  hear  that  Wells  has  given  you  well- 
deserved  recognition  in  the  Saturday. — Yours  sincerely, 

Francis  Thompson. 

"  P.S. — For  fear  of  any  confusion,  I  may  add  that 
Waugh's  book  is  a  volume  of  '  Political  Pamphlets/ 
belonging  to  the  same  '  Library '  as  the  volume  noticed 
in  my  last  '  Excursion.'  " 

"  Dear  Hind, — I  regret  exceedingly  to  find  that  the 
Menpes  was  disposed  of  along  with  an  accumulation  of 
back  review  books,  nor  can  I  get  it  back,  for  it  sold 
almost  at  once.  I  am  very  sorry  it  should  have 
happened  ;  because  it  should  not  and  would  not  have 
been  sold,  had  it  not  gone  among  others  when  I  was  in 
a  hurry,  and  my  mind  occupied  only  with  the  work  I 
had  in  hand.  Of  course,  under  such  circumstances,  I 
hold  myself  responsible  for  replacing  it  as  soon  as  I  can. 
Or  if  you  cannot  wait,  I  would  suggest  you  get  the  book 
and  dock  it  out  of  my  extra  money.  The  only  alter- 
native is  for  me  to  pick  oakum  (if  they  do  that  in  debtors' 
gaols).  And  I  have  not  the  talents  for  oakum-picking. 
Though  I  enjoyed  the  distinguished  tuition  of  a  burglar, 
who  had  gone  through  many  trials — and  houses — in  the 
pursuit  of  this  little-known  art,  I  showed  such  mediocre 
capacity  that  the  Master  did  not  encourage  me  to  per- 
severe. Besides,  seeing  how  overcrowded  the  profession 
is,  it  would  be  a  pity  for  me  to  take  the  oakum  out  of 
another  man's  fingers. 

258 


More   "  Academy" 

"  Seriously,  I  am  very  upset  that  this  should  have 
happened.  I  can  think  of  nothing  but  what  I  have 
suggested. — Yours  sincerely,  F.  Thompson." 

u  Dear  Hind, — I  was  taken  sick  on  my  way  to  the 
station,  not  having  been  to  bed  all  night,  and  having 
been  working  a  good  part  of  to-day ;  and  though  I  came 
on  as  soon  as  I  could  pull  myself  together  again,  I  was 
too  late.  So  I  leave  here  the  Dumas  article,  which  I 
brought  with  me,  and  will  be  down  to-morrow  morning, 
when  I  am  told  you  will  be  here. — Yours  in  haste, 

F.  Thompson. 

"  P.S. — You  had  another  very  interesting  article  last 
week;  but  I  had  qualms  whether  your  art  of  artistic 
romance,  or  of  the  Thing  Seen,  or  the  Thing  which 
Ought  to  have  been  Seen  if  it  Wasn't,  was  taking  me  in 
again  with  its  realism  more  real  than  fact." 

"  Dear  Hind, — I  was  so  unwell  yesterday  that  I  could 
not  come — neuralgia  in  the  eye.  I  am  the  more  sorry 
because  the  Watson  article  was  ready  to  bring  with  me, 
as  you  desired.  The  acute  pain  drove  it  out  of  my  head. 
Nor  could  I  see  to  write  an  explanation  of  my  absence. 
To-day,  when  I  remembered  the  unsent  article,  I  thought 
it  of  course  too  late  to  be  of  use  to  you  this  week.  So, 
my  eye  being  still  weak,  I  decided  to  bring  it  (not  the 
eye)  to-morrow,  with  personal  explanation.  But  getting 
your  telegram  I  send  it  herewith.  A  really  fine  Ode1 — 
though  close  (in  point  of  style)  to  my  '  Nineteenth 
Century'  Ode  in  the  Academy.  Thorp  perceived  it, 
without  any  '  lead '  from  me  ;  so  it  is  not  merely  my 
own  fancy.  But  it  is,  on  the  whole,  a  better  poem  than 
the  original.  If  all  made  such  fine  use  of  the  model,  I 
would  not  mind  imitation. — Yours  in  haste, 

F.  Thompson." 

1  William  Watson's  on  the  Coronation  of  Edward  VII. 

259 


Friends  and  Opinions 

"  16  Elgin  Avenue,  W. 
Monday. 

"  My  Dear  Hind, — I  was  taken  very  ill  last  week,  and 
was  totally  unable  to  get  in  my  work  for  the  Academy. 
Having  pulled  round,  I  send  you  herewith  the  Words- 
worth, and  trust  to  let  you  have  the  Fiona  Macleod  in 
the  course  of  to-morrow,  or  at  any  rate  by  Wednesday 
morning  by  the  latest. 

"  With  regard  to  your  request  for  articles  on  Shelley, 
Browning,  and  Tennyson,  I  am  sorry  that,  after  careful 
consideration,  I  must  ask  you  to  hand  them  over  to 
someone  else.  Considering  the  importance — the  great 
importance— of  what  I  am  asked  to  treat,  I  do  not  feel 
that  I  could  do  justice  either  to  my  subject  or  my  own 
reputation  within  the  limit  of  1000  words  proposed. 
In  the  case  of  such  minor  men  as  Landor,  or  even 
possibly  Macaulay,  I  should  not  object  to  the  limitation 
—  biographical  details  being  omitted.  But  I  simply 
cannot  pledge  my  name  to  a  disposal  of  Tennyson  or 
Browning  in  about  two  columns.  It  would  be  a  mere 
clumsy  spoiling  of  material  which  I  might  to  greater 
advantage  use  elsewhere.  I  could  only  undertake  it  on 
the  terms  that  the  length  of  the  article  should  be  de- 
termined by  the  organic  exigencies  of  my  treatment 
alone.  Of  course  I  have  never  dreamed  of  anything 
beyond  five  columns  as  what  you  could  reasonably 
allow  me  for  important  articles.  If  some  have  extended 
to  more,  it  has  been  the  result  of  miscalculation,  and  I 
should,  have  quite  acquiesced  in  your  cutting  such  ex- 
cessive articles  down.— Yours  very  sincerely, 

Francis  Thompson." 

Of  the  ethics  of  reviewing  he  writes  at  length,  to  the 
Editor  :— 

"  I  regret  that — in  pressure  of  work  and  ill-health — 
Miss  Frances  Power  Cobbe's  letter,  which  you  forwarded 

260 


The   Reviewer 

me,  has  not  received  the  immediate  attention  which 
it  deserved.  I  regret  that  my  review  should  strike  her 
as  a  personal  attack.  But  I  cannot  see  that  it  ex- 
ceeded the  limits  of  impartial  criticism.  Miss  Power 
Cobbe  seems  to  imply  that  I  in  some  way  found  Miss 
Shore's  poems  'morally  objectionable.'  1  am  unaware 
of  any  sentence  which  could  create  such  an  impression. 
For  the  rest,  I  was  necessarily  unaware  of  Miss  Shore's 
personal  circumstances.  I  was  not  even  aware  of  its 
being  her  first  book  of  poems.  When  a  book  comes 
before  a  reviewer  for  criticism,  he  cannot  be  expected  to 
know  or  take  account  of  personal  matters — of  anything 
outside  the  book  itself.  Many  things  might  plead  that 
he  should  be  very  gentle  with  the  author,  but  he  has  no 
knowledge  of  them.  The  book  is  an  impersonal  thing  to 
him  ;  and  the  author  who  publishes  a  book  becomes  im- 
personal, and  must  expect  to  be  treated  as  a  mere  name 
at  the  head  of  so  many  printed  pages  ;  it  is  the  inevit- 
able consequence  of  publication. 

"The  critic  can  but  register  his  impressions,  coldly 
impartial  by  his  very  function.  Did  he  abstain  from 
the  blame  he  thought  just,  because  (for  example)  of  the 
writer's  sex,  it  would  be  equivalent  to  abdicating  criticism 
where  women  are  concerned,  extending  the  privileges  of 
the  drawing-room  to  the  reviewing-column.  But  women 
of  literary  power  would  be  the  first  to  protest  against 
the  insincerity  of  'letting  them  off'  because  of  their 
sex." 

But  it  may  be  judged  that  reviewing  is  not  always 

so  strict  a  business  : — 

"  16  Elgin  Avenue,  W. 
Saturday. 

"My  Dear  Hind, — I  have  been  very  unwell  for  the 
last  two  or  three  weeks,  or  your  urgent  requests  should 
have  been  better  attended  to.  The  Dunlop  article  was 
finished  on  Monday  week,  when  I  got  your  letter  from 

261 


Friends  and   Opinions 

Henley,  and  consequently  had  partly  to  re-write  it. 
And  unluckily  an  attack  of  sickness  which  confined  me 
to  bed  prevented  my  getting  it  in  yesterday,  although  it 
was  actually  done.  But  I  trust  I  am  now  much  better 
all  round,  and  shall  be  able  to  give  the  Academy  proper 
attention.  It  is  cutting  my  own  throat  for  me  to  neglect 
it,  and  you  may  be  sure  I  should  not  wilfully  keep  you 
waiting  as  I  have  done  the  last  two  or  three  weeks.  I 
trust  I  have  met  Henley's  wishes  in  the  article  as  it  now 
stands.  I  had  no  notion,  to  begin  with,  that  there  was 
so  much  to  do  over  the  book ;  and  so  I  had  treated  it 
slightly.  I  will  call  in  on  Monday,  in  case  you  have 
anything  you  might  wish  to  say  in  regard  to  it. 

"  With  much  regrets  for  my  delay  (but  really  I  have 
been  having  a  pretty  beastly  time  of  it) — Yours  sincerely, 

Francis  Thompson." 

This  was  no  longer  the  Henley  of  the  great  time,  when 
every  issue  of  the  Scots  Observer  contained  a  poem  or 
essay  fit  to  make  a  beginning  of  fame  for  one  of  the 
"young  men";  when  this  week  the  new  cadences  of 
Mr.  Kipling's  "Barrack-Room  Ballads"  sent  city  readers 
swinging  and  chanting  back  from  their  offices  towards 
suburban  sunset  and  supper.  Those  contributors  fronted 
a  famous  future,  their  organ  observed  of  all  observers, 
their  editor  the  instantaneous  boisterous  welcomer 
of  the  talent  that  served  his  turn.  All  the  precious 
persons  of  his  choice  made  the  bluff  figure  of  the 
chief  the  more  defined.  "  I  am  the  Captain  of  my 
Soul"  was  his  boast,  but  others  knew  him  as  the 
captain  of  a  newspaper  staff.  Famous  for  the  young 
men  he  made  his  own,  he  is  here  recalled  for  the  young 
man  he  rejected.  My  father  sent  him  a  poem  by  Francis 
Thompson  which,  consistently  enough,  he  refused. 
Indocile,  he  would  probably  still  have  resolution  to 
refuse  verses  "reeking  of  Shelley,  whom  I  detest."  It 
is  proof  of  his  perception  that  from  the  first  he  knew 

262 


A   Rejection 

the  newcomer  was  no  shipmate  for  the  Captain  Silver 
of  the  literary  weeklies.  In  the  description  of  the  lame 
pirate  of  Treasure  Island  the  likening  of  his  face  to  a 
ham  suggests  that  the  image  of  the  editor,  more  massive 
than  those  of  any  two  contributors,  was  before  Steven- 
son as  he  wrote  ;  pirate  and  editor  had  each  a  crutch, 
and  each  threw  it  at  an  intruder.  Thompson's  words  of 
Kenley  and  his  last  book  impute  to  him,  too,  a  Silver's 
grip  :— 

"...  We  know  exactly  the  best  he  has  done,  and 
resent  instinctively  the  slightest  deflection  from  it.  Well, 
here  there  are  such  deflections — that  is  all  which  can  be 
said  ;  and  we  feel  them  in  exact  proportion  to  our  love 
of  the  Henley  who  took  us  masterfully  by  the  throat  of 
old.  He  still  takes  us  by  the  throat,  but  his  grip  is  not 
compulsive.  Yet  now  and  again  the  old  mastery  thrills 
us,  and  we  remember.     It  is  good  to  remember." 

And  Henley  on  his  side  learnt  to  admire.  Where  the 
poet  had  failed,  the  journalist  writing  about  The 
Centenary  Burns  had  his  strong  approval : — 

"March  7,  1897. 

"Dear  Hind, — Thompson's  article,  which  came  in  this  morning, 
is  quite  masterly  throughout.  The  worst  I  can  say  against  it  is, 
indeed,  that  it  anticipates  some  parts  of  my  own  terminal  essay, 
so  that  I  shall  have  to  quote  it  instead  of  writing  out  of  my  own 
stomach.  All  manner  of  compliments  to  him,  and  a  thousand 
thanks.  I  know  not  which  to  admire  the  more  :  his  critical  intelli- 
gence or  his  intellectual  courage. 

"  To  one  point  only  must  I  take  exception.  The  book  is  re- 
ferred to  throughout  as  '  Mr.  Henley's.'  This  it  is  not ;  so,  in 
justice  to  Henderson  (who  feels  the  slight  the  more  keenly  because 
of  the  uncommon  brilliancy  of  the  work)  I  must  ask  you  to  find 
room  for  the  protest  herewith  enclosed.  .  .  . — Sincerely  yours, 

W.  E.  H." 

Henley's  half-capitulation  shows  a  streak  of  unsus- 
pected  tolerance.      F.   T.   reeked   of    so    many   things, 

263 


Friends  and  Opinions 

besides  Shelley,  that  Henley  detested.  The  Burns 
article  itself,  to  which  Henley  makes  allusion,  says  un- 
compromising things  of  Burns  : — 

"Imagination  and  tenderness  demand  either  the  refine- 
ment of  education  or  the  refinement  of  pure  and  sweet 
life.  These  things  might  be  in  peasant  song.  They 
are  in  the  songs  of  the  Dimbovitza,  which  are  higher 
as  absolute  poetry  than  anything  within  Burns'  compass. 
Not  because  these  songs  are  the  outcome  of  greater 
genius,  but  because  they  are  the  outcome  of  a  healthier 
and  sweeter  rustic  state  ;  a  state  in  which  the  women 
were  chaste  and  tender,  the  men  brave  and  sober. 
Burns  could  well  have  sung  it  had  he  known  it." 

Writing  a  year  later,  Henley,  on  the  defensive,  said  : — 

"  My  dear  Hind, — What  a  jackass  is  your  F.  Thompson  !  I 
have  never  babbled  the  Art  for  Art's  Sake  babble.  If  I  have,  I'll 
eat  the  passage  publicly.  What  I've  said  is,  the  better  the  writer 
the  better  the  poet :  that,  in  fact,  good  writing's  better  than  bad. 
That  is  my  only  formula,  and  that  I'm  no  more  likely  to  swallow 
than  F.  T.  is  to  write  invariably  well. — Yours  ever  sincerely, 

W.  E.  Henley." 

But  Henley  and  Thompson  were  to  make  friends  : — 

"  My  dear  Thompson, — I  saw  Henley  on  Saturday.  He  wants 
us  to  call  on  him  next  Friday  afternoon.  Will  you  be  here  at 
three  sharp  ?  Henley  said  some  very  nice  things  about  you,  and 
is  quite  anxious  to  meet  you.  He  also  bids  me  say  that  he  is 
looking  forward  to  your  excursions  on  the  Prophets.  So  do  hurry 
them  up.  He  tells  me  that  many  of  the  lyrics  in  his  Anthology 
are  from  the  Old  Testament.     This  is  entre  nous. — Sincerely  yours, 

Lewis  Hind." 

His  only  encounter  with  the  sage  of  Muswell  Hill 
followed,  but  not  at  three  sharp.  To  his  escort,  Mr.  E.  V. 
Lucas  and  Mr.  Hind,  Henley  was  the  mighty  overseer  of 
men  who  had  not  found,  save  through  him,  their  journal- 
istic souls.  The  escort  still  marvels  at  F.  T.'s  unpunctu- 
ality.     Francis  owed  neither  his  soul  nor  hours  to  any 

264 


He  Visits   Henley 

man,  and  was  late.  "  I  have  had  no  time  to  eat,  Hind," 
was  his  gloomy  beginning.  Mr.  Hind  has  described  what 
followed  a  meal  at  the  station  : — 

"  Suddenly  he  became  rigid,  his  body  swayed,  and  a  film  came 
over  his  eyes.  A  minute  or  two  passed  ;  then  he  recovered, 
lighted  his  pipe,  and  did  not  refer  to  the  episode.  We  arrived  at 
Henley's  house  two  hours  late." 

Doubtless  his  timorousness  was  as  great  as  theirs, 
only  his  timeliness  was  less.  But  it  was  he  who 
fronted  and  appeased  the  wrathful  master  with  talk  of 
"  London  Voluntaries  "  and  Henley's  influence.  Instead 
of  reeking  of  Shelley  he  showed  himself  reeking  of 
Henley,  who  was  not  abhorrent.  The  escort  were  left 
well  to  the  rear  in  flatteries  no  less  sincere  than  theirs. 
Thompson's  admirations  were  always  well  set  up  and 
bright-eyed  because  they  were  so  well  reasoned.  No 
prepossessions,  whims,  or  sloths  made  up  his  opinion. 
No  author  was  carelessly  shelved  or  unshelved  ;  he  did 
not  put  Swinburne  aside  although  his  angels  and  Swin- 
burne's never  rested  nor  flew  on  the  wing  together.  His 
attention  was  widely  inclusive.  Often  would  he  come  with 
some  cutting  of  fugitive  verse  and  tender  it  for  what  it 
was  worth,  reading  it  aloud  and  expecting  from  his  audi- 
ence the  controlled  and  properly  adjusted  pleasure 
he  himself  experienced.  So  tolerant  was  he,  that 
anybody's  complaint  that  there  "was  nothing  in 
it,"  would  cause  him  to  reconsider  his  cutting ;  the 
"anybody"  of  poetry  or  criticism  was  the  recipient 
of  his  constant  courtesy.  He  was  very  slow — too  slow 
for  the  short  span  of  his  life  to  alter  his  allegiance 
to  the  literature  that  had  ever  seriously  contented  him. 
The  novels  of  Lord  Lytton  he  read  again  at  the  end 
of  his  life  because  he  had  early  cared  for  them,  and 
reasonably,  he  found.  So  with  Hardy  ;  of  one  passage 
I  remember  him  to  have  often  spoken  with  parti- 
cular admiration— that  in  which  Sergeant  Troy  thralls 

265 


Friends  and  Opinions 

a  woman  by  sword  play  and  the  swinging  of  his 
flashing  steel  round  and  round  her  person.  So  with 
Meredith,  over  whose  novels  I  have  found  him  sitting 
in  a  Westbourne  Grove  confectioner's,  with,  I  am 
sure,  "review  "  books  unreviewed  in  his  bag,  and  in  his 
pocket  telegrams  from  Hind.  Of  Meredith's  poetry  his 
admiration  was  of  the  established  sort  that  needs  no 
questioning.  And  Jacobs  had  his  laugh,  always  readier 
than  his  tear,  for  pathetic  print  is  more  liable  to 
stand  suspect  on  the  page  than  humorous.  Whatever 
modern  author  he  discussed  it  was  his  relish  rather  than 
his  distaste  that  flavoured  his  opinion. 

Henley  and  he  were  amiable  for  an  afternoon  ;  but 
the  difference  between  them  could  hardly  have  been 
bridged  for  longer.  The  differences  between  them  were 
made  up  of  crude  difference  of  speech,  of  the  actual 
lipping  of  feelings  and  phrases.  Thompson  writes 
lightly  in  the  following  note-book  comment,  but  he  is 
treading  lightly  because  the  ground  beneath  quakes 
with  radical  conflict  : — 

"We  are  convinced  Mr.  H.  has  been  misled  by  a 
false  report.  It  is  the  more  probable  because  Spring, 
of  late  years,  has  been  flighty,  and  given  rise  to  dis- 
satisfied comment.  We  are  aware  that  C.  P.  has  spoken 
of  '  all  amorous  May,'  and  yet  another  poet  has  gone 
so  far  as  to  call  the  same  lady  '  wanton.'  But '  the  harlot 
spring' — Captain,  these  be  very  bitter  words.  Why 
in  the  name  of  wilfulness,  why  must  poor  Spring — of 
all  seasons,  poor  Spring — be  a  harlot  ?  Even  the  author 
of  Dolores,  with  all  his  disrelish  for  '  lilies  and  lan- 
guors,' has  not  committed  defloration  of  the  poor 
young  maid — 'the  girl  child  Spring';  he  leaves  her  as 
he  found  her.  If  she  escaped  the  dangerous,  society 
of  Mr.  S.  (whose  verse  would  '  thaw  the  consecrated 
snow  that  lies  on  Dian's  lap ')  we  cannot  believe  she 
should  later  make  this  slip." 

266 


Buny 


an 

Of  Henley's  "fads,  blindnesses,  wilful  crotchets  "  as  also 
of  his  critical  prose,  "the  swift  and  restless  brilliance  of 
a  leaping  salmon  in  the  sunlight,"  F.  T.  wrote  in  the 
Academy  and  brought,  in  doing  so,  the  thought  to 
one's  mind  of  his  own  dissimilarity. 

Perhaps  nowhere  in  all  the  thousand  columns  F.  T. 
contributed  to  the  Press  is  a  single  wilful  word.  The 
unexpected  must  never  be  expected  of  him.  His  views 
on  the  general  literature  of  the  past  may  be  taken  for 
granted,  or  sought  in  their  proper  place.  He  will 
seldom  be  found  at  variance  with  the  accepted  estimates. 
Perhaps  only  once  does  he  stand  nearly  alone.  One  of 
his  earliest  essays — "  Bunyan  in  the  Light  of  Modern 
Criticism  "—approved  Mr.  Richard  Dowling's  assault 
upon  The  Pilgrims  Progress.  Thompson  could  not 
tolerate  the  dulness  and  insufficiency  of  Bunyan's 
descriptions  : — 

"In  the  account  of  the  Valley  of  Despair  he  does 
flicker  into  a  meagre  glimmer  of  description  ;  but  its 
only  effect  is  to  leave  the  darkness  of  his  fancy  visible, 
and  he  flickers  feebly  out  again.  The  Mouth  of  Hell 
is  by  the  way ;  and,  after  his  usual  commonplace 
manner  of  vision,  he  introduces  this  tremendous  idea 
with  a  dense  flippancy,  such  as  never  surely  was  ac- 
corded it  before." 

If  he  essayed  other  reversals  of  conventional  opinion, 
he  did  so  in  good  faith.  But  one  goes  to  his  critical 
work,  not  for  its  consistent  good  faith  and  sound  sense, 
but  for  the  few  dominant,  vital  enthusiasms  that  hold  him 
and  would  have  been  written  of,  even  if  he  had  never 
contributed  to  the  papers.  The  "Shelley"  has  been 
quoted  incidentally  in  these  pages;  his  "  Crashaw,"  in 
its  carefully  critical  tone,  seems  to  deny  an  admiration 
often  obvious  in  Thompson's  work.  As  a  reviewer  he  put 
by  some  of  his  impulsive  affection.  De  Quincey  and 
Patmore  entered  into  his  life  ;  to  place  them  among  the 

267 


Friends  and  Opinions 

"reviewer's  "  authors  would  be  absurd.  Rossetti's  name 
got  into  Thompson's  criticisms  from  every  quarter  ;  it 
is  in  u  Paganism  Old  and  New,"  in  the  "  Don  Quixote," 
in  "Crashaw,"  and  in  a  dozen  other  papers;  it  dogs 
de  Quincey's  in  and  out  of  all  the  prose  work. 

He  professed  no  learning,  boasted  no  single  proficiency. 
In  a  young  family  that  was  finding  its  way  about  in 
journalism  and  painting  and  other  professions,  he 
offered  no  unfriendly  criticism,  and  seemed  to  know  of 
none.  I  wonderingly  remember  now  how  he  let  me 
help  him  in  an  article  on  Hardy.  At  first  there  had 
been  a  difficulty  about  the  re-reading  of  the  novels ; 
"  No,  Wilfrid,  it's  no  good.  As  I  thought,  it's  no  good, 
Wilfrid,"  he  had  said  after  searching  the  shops  of  Kil- 
burn  for  the  books  he  wanted.  "  Your  own  copies  are 
gone — gone  from  the  shelves,  and  I've  no  way  of  pro- 
curing others."  Even  when  supplied  with  copies  he 
needed  help,  and  wrote,  as  I  know  from  the  printed 
article,  a  thing  of  patchwork,  with  a  centre-piece  of  his 
own  well-knit  prose,  and  a  beginning  and  end  ;  the  rest 
the  bedraggled  fringes,  which  I  recognise  with  reluct- 
ance as  I  read  them  now  for  my  own. 

His  earlier  admiration  of  Swinburne  is  restated  with 
reserves  in  his  Academy  review  of  the  collected  works  of 
that  poet,  of  whom  it  was  rumoured  that  he  disapproved 
of  Thompson's  liberties  with  the  English  language. 
Many  younger  poets  might  have  been  made  the 
happier  had  they  been  aware  whose  was  the  pen  that 
praised  them  in  print.  In  Hand  in  Hand,  Verses  by  a 
Mother  and  Daughter,  F.  T.  makes  the  discovery  of  a 
sonnet  with  a  last  line  that  "is  a  touch  of  genius" — 
a  sonnet  by  the  daughter,  Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling's  sister, 
and  called  "  Love's  Murderer."  Under  the  heading 
"Above  Average,"  1901,  he  deals  with  the  books  of 
Mr.  Aleister  Crowley  and  Mr.  Madison  Cawein.  Mr. 
Crowley  he  had  reviewed  before.  "TheMother's  Tragedy" 
contains  the  "  old  vigour  and  boldness,  the  sinewy  phrase 

268 


Contemporaries 

that  draws  the  praise  out  of  you."  At  less  length  we 
read  of  Mr.  Cawein,  whose  "strength  lies  in  luxuriant 
descriptive  power.  .  .  .  Assuredly,  in  this  single  gift, 
Mr.  Cawein  shows  very  great  promise  and  no  small 
accomplishment."  He  welcomes  in  the  Academy  the 
poetry  of  Mr.  Sturge  Moore,  Mr.  Alfred  Noyes,  and  Lord 
Alfred  Douglas;  and  anticipating  George  Meredith,  he 
praises  Dora  Sigerson  Shorter  for  her  gifts  of  metrical 
narrative,  adding :  "  Her  ballads  touch  a  deep  and 
poignant  feeling.  The  unconsciousness  of  a  child  con- 
trasted with  the  sorrow  of  its  earthly  lot — this  is  a 
familiar  theme,  yet  Mrs.  Shorter  handles  it  with  un- 
familiar freshness  and  power."  He  pulls  the  ropes  for 
Mr.  Newbolt's  Admirals  All;  he  clucks  his  head  to 
Mr.  Owen  Seaman's  parodies.  He  gathers  "the  teem- 
ing felicities "  from  the  Studies  in  Prose  and  Verse  of 
Mr.  Arthur  Symons.  F.  T.  was  one  of  the  few  critics 
who  "  lived  by  admiration."  At  the  end  of  a  day  of 
reviewing  he  would  still  have  the  spirit  to  cut  occasional 
verses  from  his  evening  paper  and  carry  them  for  appro- 
bation to  friends  far  quicker  than  he  to  shrug  fastidious 
shoulders. 

Aubrey  de  Vere,  a  man  mellow  in  ancient  stateliness, 
he  met  at  Palace  Court.  The  obituary  notice  of  de 
Vere  in  the  Academy  was  written  by  him.  From  the 
"Ode  to  the  Daffodil"  and  "Autumnal  Ode"  he  quotes 
enough  to  justify,  with  reservation,  a  high  admiration  : — 

"Of  warmth  he  was  capable,  especially  in  his  younger 
days,  but  not  of  pathos  or  subtle  suggestion.  His 
general  manner,  it  must  be  owned,  was  somewhat  coldly 
grave.  One  of  his  odes  is  fine,  with  passages  of  ab- 
solute grandeur  ;  some  of  his  sonnets  are  only  not 
among  the  best  in  that  kind." 

His  appreciations  were  not  ordered  by  papers  com- 
mitted to  a  policy  of  praise.  On  the  contrary,  he  wrote  : 
"  My  editors  complain  that  1  don't  go  for  people — that 

269 


Friends  and  Opinions 

I  am  too  lenient."  For  all  that,  he  knew  the  distress 
of  the  vapid  verse  that  came  his  way,  and  he  stopped 
to  note  it  in  rhyme  : — 

Of  little  poets,  neither  fool  nor  seer, 
Aping  the  larger  song,  let  all  men  hear 
How  weary  is  our  heart  these  many  days  ! 

Of  bards  who,  feeling  half  the  thing  they  say, 
Say  twice  the  thing  they  feel,  and  in  such  way 
Piece  out  a  passion  .  .  . 

Of  bards  indignant  in  an  easy  chair 

(Because  just  so  great  bards  before  them  were) 

Who  yet  can  only  bring 

With  all  their  toil 

Their  kettle  of  verse  to  sing, 

But  never  boil, — 

How  weary  is  our  heart  these  many  days  ! 

But  the  solace  he  had  to  the  drudgery  of  reviewing 
was  generally  ancient.  When  he  could  set  to  and  write 
a  solid  Academy  page  on  the  "  clod-paced  Drayton," 
note  the  sluggishness  of  "  his  thick-coming  ideas  in  the 
strait  pen  of  a  defined  stanza,"  chaff  him  for  the  room 
he  needs  to  turn  about  in,  and  cry  "hear,  hear!"  to 
his  minor  metres,  he  was  doing  lively  work  and  was 
lively  at  it.  Or  when  Samuel  Daniel  comes  up  for 
judgment,  the  critic  is  manifestly  happy — happier  than 
in  the  presence  of  Mr.  Maurice  Hewlett  or  Mr.  Kipling. 
A  review  of  an  Elizabethan  is  touched  with  a  quicker 
interest  than  that  of  the  weightiest  in  contemporary 
literature.  The  evenness  of  his  judgment,  the  unbiassed 
distribution  of  his  attention  makes  for  fairness,  but 
somewhat  spoils  the  current  and  local  effectiveness.  He 
enjoyed  getting  at  Butler's  wit  more  than  getting  at 
Oscar  Wilde's.  Hudibras  was  a  book  of  the  moment 
for  him,  whereas  The  Yellow  Book  was  not.  St.  Francis 
de  Sales  might  tempt  him  on  a  bookstall,  but  he  never 

270 


Last  Books 

bought  a  new  work.  D'Annunzio  and  publishers' 
announcements  did  not  catch  his  pennies;  nor  were 
his  borrowings  much  more  modern.  The  authors  he 
had  from  my  shelves  were  Swedenborg  and  Shakespeare, 
with  W.  W.  Jacobs,  in  whose  jolly  company  he  spent 
a  few  of  the  last  hours  of  his  life. 


271 


CHAPTER   XIII:   THE   LONDONER 

On  days  when  London  is  cracked  and  bleared  with  cold, 
and  passengers  on  the  black  pavement  are  grey  and 
purple  and  mean  in  their  distress,  whipped  by  the  East 
Wind  and  chivied  by  the  draughts  of  the  gutters ;  when 
lamp-posts  and  telegraph  poles  and  the  harsh  sides  of 
the  houses  ache  together  and  shiver,  Thompson  would 
be  the  most  forlorn  and  shrivelled  figure  in  the  open. 
It  always  seemed  to  be  a  necessity  of  his  to  be  out  in 
rough  weather.  I  have  never  known  him  to  stay  in  on 
its  account ;  and  at  times  when  even  riches  lack  con- 
fidence, and  an  universal  scourge  of  cold  and  ugliness 
lashes  the  town,  he  was  about.  Even  within,  beside  a 
fire,  he  was  a  weathercock  of  a  man.  The  distress  of 
his  hands,  and  the  veering  of  his  hair  from  the  com- 
parative orderliness  of  other  times  would  instantly 
proclaim  an  East  wind.  It  was  written  all  over  him, 
and,  though  come  to  the  shelter  of  four  walls,  the  tails 
of  his  coat  seemed  still  to  be  fluttering.  One  thought 
of  him  when  East  winds  blew  as  the  Pope  of  Chester- 
field's description — "  .  .  .  his  poor  body  a  mere  Pandora's 
box,  containing  all  the  ills  that  ever  afflicted  humanity." 
Sensitive  beyond  endurance,  Francis  yet  made  nought  of 
his  pains  so  long  as  the  keener  sensitiveness  of  his  con- 
science was  undisturbed.  Of  all  men  the  least  fit  to 
endure  physical  suffering,  he  endured  it  forgetfully  and 
even  light-heartedly  unless,  his  spiritual  assent  being 
thwarted,  he  felt  the  chills  of  estrangement  from  God. 

He  was  not  more  comfortable  in  the  sun,  and  against 
the  particular  heat  of  1906  he  had  particular  ill-will. 
"  Most  people  expatiate  on  the  excellence  of  this  summer, 

272 


Spring  in   Kilburn 

though  the  angry  and  malignant  sun  is  as  unlike  the 
true  summer  sun  as  the  heat  of  fever  to  the  heat  of 
youth."  It  was  his  habit  to  go  forth  in  August  in  an 
ulster — threadbare,  perhaps — but  his  own  fever  alone 
explains  his  distress. 

Sister  Songs  opens  with  a  complaint  against  the  spring 
season  of  1891  : — 

Shrewd  winds  and  shrill, — were  these  the  speech  of  May  ? 
A  ragged,  slag-grey  sky — invested  so, 
Mary's  spoilt  nursling,  wert  thou  wont  to  go  ? 

"  To  my  Godchild "  opens  in  the  same  manner.  The 
early  months,  drenched  with  icy  rain,  had  meant  misery 
and  dumbness.  Breaking  of  silence  came  with  the 
breaking  of  the  frost,  and  the  poetry  which  returned 
with  the  warm  weather  is  full  of  acknowledgments.  It 
is  something  more  than  the  small-talk  of  his  verse  ;  it  is, 
like  the  dedications  of  the  eighteenth  century,  a  formal 
obeisance  to  a  patron — "  Sun-god  and  song-god." 

The  Spring  found  him  happiest.  The  May  of  his 
poems  is  the  May  known  to  the  Londoner.  After 
deploring,  in  the  proem  of  Sister  Songs,  the  lateness  of 
the  season,  it  is  suddenly  upon  him.  He  discovered 
it  for  certain  round  a  street  corner  not  far  from  his 
lodgings  in  Elgin  Avenue — 

Mark  yonder  how  the  long  laburnum  drips 

Its  jocund  spilth  of  fire,  its  honey  of  wild  flame. 

That  is  the  signal  best  known  to  the  Londoner.  Most 
of  the  details  of  his  description  in  Sister  Songs,  from  the 
stars  to  Covent  Garden  clock,  are  metropolitan.  From 
his  high  room,  down  steep  stairs,  a  faded  oilcloth  at  his 
feet,  the  coiling  patterns  of  a  varnished  wall-paper  at  his 
restricted  elbow  ;  through  the  muffled  light  and  air  of 
the  hall,  and  past  the  broken  stucco  of  the  front  steps, 
he  would  emerge  on  a  morning  of  good  fortune,  to  see, 

273  S 


The  Londoner 

not  a  dismal  street  of  other  lodgings  exactly  like 
his  own,  but 

A  garden  of  enchanting 
In  visionary  May, 
Swayless  for  the  spirit's  haunting, 

Thrice    threefold    walled    with   emerald    from   our   mortal 
mornings  grey. 

We  may  imagine  that  St.  Francis  cared  not  overmuch 
for  the  look  of  the  Assisi  streets  ;  it  is  doubtful  whether 
Francis  of  Kilburn  cared  at  all  about  the  aspect  of 
Kilburn.  The  gayest  thoroughfare  caught  his  eye  no 
more  than  the  most  dismal— and  Brondesbury  is  not  gay. 
To  "  And  your  new  lodging,  Francis,  what  of  it  ?  "  he 
would  give  a  good  account  of  the  rights  and  lefts  that 
led  there,  but  he  would  make  no  picture  of  it  for  you, 
having  none  himself.  I  do  not  suppose  he  found  the 
soot  and  stucco  architecture  of  Elgin  Avenue  any  more 
or  less  entertaining  than  the  red  brick  of  Palace  Court, 
and,  while  he  might  describe  Oxford  Street  as  "  stony- 
hearted," I  doubt  if  he  could  have  described  to  the 
satisfaction  of  a  builder  the  nature  of  its  exterior  stone. 
Manchester  could  hardly  do  less  than  blind  the  civic  eye. 
Certainly  Francis  was  no  observer,  and  had  retained  the 
ignorance,  rather  than  the  innocence,  of  his  Vision. 

At  this  time,  after  his  return  from  Pantasaph,  his  days 
were  mostly  spent  at  Palace  Court  and  nights  passed  in 
the  region  which  at  first  by  accident  and  later  by  habit 
was  his  own.  When,  many  years  before,  he  came  from 
Storrington,he  was  lodged  at  Fernhead  Road,  Paddington, 
and  afterwards  at  various  houses  in  Elgin  Avenue  with 
Landlady  Maries,  the  wife  of  my  father's  printer.  Faithful 
to  the  northern  town,  his  last  lodging  was  at  128  Brondes- 
bury Road,  Kilburn.  At  the  junction  of  Elgin  Avenue 
and  Chippenham  Road  is  the  "  Skiddaw  "  public-house, 
by  whose  parlour-fire  he  often  spent  nocturnal  hours  in 
preference  to  the  hearths  of  the  critics.     Mr.  Pile,  the 

274 


In  the  Edgware  Road 

tobacconist  next  door,  is  remembered  for  the  support 
that  he  gave  to  Francis's  tremulous  claims  to  a  place 
next  the  fire.  Francis  seldom  failed  to  receive  kindness 
at  the  hands  of  rougher  men  ;  his  constant  courtesy  of 
speech  and  his  humility  were  to  the  liking  of  a  class  quick 
to  know  a  gentle  man.  From  the  whispered  hints  of 
Mr.  Pile  it  was  understood  that  the  frail,  shabby  man  of 
many  platitudes  and  an  abstracted  eye  was  privileged. 

From  the  situation  of  his  lodgings  it  came  about  that 
the  Edgware  Road  was  his  Rambla,  his  Via  dei  Palazzi, 
his  Rue  de  Rivoli ;  and  at  the  end  of  it,  the  site  of 
Tyburn  Tree.  No  local  allusion,  however,  finds  place 
in  his  "  To  the  English  Martyrs,"  which  is  another  sign  of 
his  aloofness.     But  when  he  writes  of  the  Tree  that — 

The  shadow  lies  on  England  now 

O 

Of  the  deathly-fruited  bough, 
Cold  and  black  with  malison 
Lies  between  the  land  and  sun  ; 
Putting  out  the  sun,  the  bough 
Shades  England  now, 

his  voice  rose  from  the  frozen  and  fogged  pavement  that 
marks  the  very  spot. 

Browning,  too,  knew,  and  far  better,  the  "cheap 
jewellery  and  servants'  underclothing"  of  the  Edgware 
Road.  Unlike  Browning,  F.  T.  had  no  eye  for  values. 
And  among  night-caps,  he  would  never  have  known 
that  they  were  cotton,  and  hardly  that  they  were  red. 
As  soon  as  say  whether  jewellery  or  clothing  was  cheap, 
he  could  have  argued  with  Browning  on  the  vintages. 
A  connoisseur  in  his  books  by  right  of  imagination,  his 
connoisseurship  would  not  have  passed  muster  in  the 
shops;  it  was  nailed  to  the  counter.  His  waggon  of 
wares  ran  smoothly  enough  in  starry  traces  ;  but  hitched 
to  cart-horses  in  Edgware  Road  he  could  not  have 
driven  it  ten  yards.  Perhaps  when  Patmore,  a  collector 
of  rubies  and  sapphires,  drew  specimen  stones  from  his 

275 


The  Londoner 

waistcoat,  Thompson  was  thrilled  with  the  real  presence  ; 
but  not  so  much  as  by  the  love  of  immaterial  jewels. 
Not  even  Meredith's  burgundy  could  teach  him — who 
had  written  of  grapes  against  the  sun  without  ever  enter- 
ing a  vineyard — anything  of  wine-merchant's  wine.  Be- 
fore Hedges  and  Butler  were  in  partnership,  before  the 
chateaux  were  a-building,  his  own  cellar  had  been  laid 
down. 

His  inattention  in  the  Edgware  Road  was  out  and  out ; 
one  marvels  that  he  ever  turned  the  right  corner,  and 
not  at  all  that  he  was  knocked  down  by  a  cab.  But 
instinctively  his  eyes  would  open  in  fair  presences  ;  the 
things  that  made  poetry  struck  through  his  closed  lids, 
as  daylight  through  a  sleeper's.  But  inattention  in  the 
Edgware  Road  made  the  place  blank  as  a  railway  tunnel. 
He  could  look  upon  the  raiment  of  his  sitter  in  "  Love 
in  Dian's  Lap,"  and  pay  his  compliments,  but  never  a 
word  had  he  for  the  bonnets  of  mistress  or  maid  upon 
the  highway.  Riding  in  an  omnibus  he  would  not  know 
whether  Polaire  or  a  Sister  of  Charity  were  at  his  side. 

He  was  constantly  alone  ;  and,  often  as  I  have  met 
him  in  the  streets  of  London,  I  have  seldom  surprised 
him  in  a  conscious  moment.  He  would  walk  past, 
looking  straight  before  him,  and  if  he  was  always  late 
for  his  appointments,  and  took  longer,  by  several  hours, 
to  get  home  at  night  than  the  average  man,  it  was  be- 
cause he  would  retrace  his  steps,  and  go  to  and  fro 
upon  a  certain  beat  as  if  indefinitely  postponing  the  evil 
moment  when  he  would  have  to  confine  himself  for 
food,  or  sleep. 

The  lamps  of  the  town  bring  moths  from  the  dark 
fields.  They  had  no  attraction  for  him.  I  never  heard 
him  talking  of  the  beauty  of  London.  There  is  no 
pleasure  in  his  lines,  which  like  others  here  quoted  are 
put  forward,  not  as  poetry,  but  as  biography — 

The  blear  and  blurred  eyes  of  the  lamps 
Against  the  damps, 
276 


The  London  Book 

or  in  the  commentary  on  a   London    dawn    from   an- 
other note-book : — 


The  dreary  scream  of  stable  cocks 

Comes  ghastly  through  the  dark, 
The  salty  blues  of  day 

Slant  on  the  dreary  park  ; 
The  houses'  massed  fumes 

Against  the  heartless  light 

Hold  the  black  ooze  of  night. 

He  never  went  sight-seeing ;  the  town  was  the  dun 
background  of  his  own  visions,  but  certain  actualities 
were  etched  vividly  or  heavily  massed  upon  his  mental 
canvas.  Certain  things  he  knew  more  completely  than 
the  practised  desultory  observer,  and  when,  in  1897,  he 
was  asked  by  Messrs.  Constable  for  a  book  on  London, 
he  could  at  once  fetch  out  of  the  studio  of  his  memory 
a  great  number  of  pictures  that  had  been  stored  there, 
their  faces  to  the  wall.  Although  "  my  London  book  " 
and  the  work  on  it  made  for  several  months  his  password 
to  late  meals  at  our  house,  he  never  wrote  it.  His 
letters  to  Mr.  William  Hyde,  whose  drawings  were  to 
make  half  the  book,  were,  as  it  proved,  Francis's  only 
contribution  to  the  scheme  : — 

"47  Palace  Court,  W. 

"Dear  Mr.  Hyde, — I  regret  to  have  delayed  my 
answer  to  your  letter  so  long.  Firstly,  I  was  occupied  by 
unavoidable  business  ;  secondly,  when  I  was  free  to  con- 
sider your  notes,  it  took  me  some  time  really  to  master 
them,  and  consider  my  plan  in  relation  to  them.  In 
the  first  place,  I  do  not  design  a  consecutive  narrative 
of  any  kind.  I  do  not  design  to  treat  either  topography 
or  the  life  of  London,  for  both  of  which  I  am  utterly 
unqualified.  My  design  is  to  give  impressions  of 
London,   such    as    present   themselves    to   a   wanderer 

277 


The  Londoner 

through  its  streets.  I  intend  to  divide  the  book  into 
parts,  which— by  way  of  provisional  title — I  might  de- 
scribe as  Fair  London  and  Terrible  London.  For 
Fair  London,  the  plates  you  have  already  done  will 
supply  sufficient  material  in  the  way  of  illustration. 
The  other  part  will  consist  of  studies  of  London  under 
its  darker  aspects — weird,  sordid,  and  gloomy — being 
drawn  from  its  appearance  rather  than  its  life.  Under 
this  section  would  come  some  of  the  plates  already 
done ;  and  I  have  marked  others  among  your  notes, 
any  of  which  would  fall  into  my  ideas.  Since  the 
darker  aspect  of  London  is  particularly  evident  to  a 
houseless  wanderer,  it  is  my  idea  to  include  in  this 
section  a  description  of  the  aspect  of  London  from 
midnight  to  early  dawn — for  which  my  own  experiences 
furnish  me  with  material.  I  intend  to  take  my  wanderer 
through  the  Strand,  Covent  Garden,  Trafalgar  Square, 
perhaps  part  of  Piccadilly,  the  Embankment,  Blackfriars 
Bridge,  &c,  bringing  him  round  to  Fleet  Street  opposite 
St.  Paul's  at  dawn  ;  and  to  describe  the  night  effects 
and  the  effects  of  gradual  dawn  in  the  streets.  You  can 
see  for  yourself  that  some  of  your  suggested  drawings 
would  be  embraced  in  this,  perhaps  some  of  those  already 
done — for  example,  "Coffee  Stall,  early  morning"  ;  the 
"houseless  wanderer  sleeping  in  the  streets"  and  even 
the  "  Factory  at  Night,"  since  I  have  in  my  mind  such  a 
factory  across  Westminster.  Also,  as  regards  the 
general  section,  I  have  in  my  mind  a  bridge  near  a 
railway  station,  with  long  shafts  of  electric  lights, 
mingled  with  other  lights,  utilitarian,  and  a  river ; 
which  suggests  sufficiently  your  goods  depot  with 
electric  light  effects.  In  the  same  section  I  should 
dwell  on  such  a  neighbourhood  as  New  Cut.  Your 
suggestion  as  to  this  or  Clare  Market  will  therefore 
be  certain  to  come  a  propos,  whether  by  night  or  day  ; 
though  I  think  night  exhibits  such  neighbourhoods 
most  impressively  and  characteristically.     And  I  intend 

278 


The  Landladies 

to  describe  a  night  fire ;  and  the  effects  of  vistas  of 
lamps  in  such  a  neighbourhood  as  Pall  Mall.  Locality, 
you  will  see,  is  unimportant.  It  is  effect  I  wish  to  dwell 
on  ;  the  character — of  horror,  sombreness,  weirdness,  or 
beauty — of  various  scenes.  My  own  mind  turns  espe- 
cially towards  the  gloomier  majesties  and  suggestive- 
ness  of  London,  because  I  have  seen  it  most  peculiarly 
under  those  aspects." 

The  book  was  written,  but,  as  Francis's  copy  was 
never  produced,  by  another  author. 

Thompson's  landladies  were  his  faithful,  patient,  and 
puzzled  friends.  He  disliked  their  food,  broke  their  rules, 
burnt  their  curtains,  but  seldom  rebuked  them.  They, 
on  their  part,  found  in  him  none  of  the  virtue  of  a  good 
lodger.  Notwithstanding,  they  showed  a  gentleness  of 
regard  and  manner  that  did  credit  to  their  liberality.  I 
have  known  them  show  an  unwillingness  to  lose  him 
quite  out  of  proportion  to  his  value  as  a  lodger,  and 
he  showed  himself  more  reluctant  to  move  away  from 
them  than  was  always  consistent  with  their  excellence 
as  landladies.  Of  one  of  these  he  was  genuinely  fond, 
and  her  feeling  for  him  she  sought  to  explain  when 
she  said,  "  I  can  sympathise  with  him,  you  know,  having 
a  son  in  the  profession  myself." 

It  was  she  who  sought  to  mend  his  unsociable  ways 
by  subtle  attacks  upon  his  solitude,  saying,  "  It's  very  nice 
for  Mr.  Thompson  ;  he's  got  the  trains  at  the  back  every 
half  hour  and  more,  when  he's  in  his  bedroom.  But 
then  the  trains,  when  all's  said,  aren't  the  same  as  the 
company  he  could  get  downstairs.  Many  a  time  I've 
asked  him  to  have  his  bit  of  lunch  in  with  me  and  the 
other  '  mental ' — O  yes,  she's  a  mental  case,  as  I  may 
have  told  you."  On  a  few  occasions  she  did  entice 
him  to  her  table,  but  more  often  he  was  content  with 
the  conversation  of  the  District  Railway  engines  at  the 
bottom   of    the   garden.      His   own    comment    on    the 

279 


The  Londoner 

trains  was  among  the  random  manuscripts  found  in 
that  same  bedroom : — 

The  very  demon  of  the  scene, 
The  screaming  horror  of  the  train, 
Rushes  its  iron  and  ruthless  way  amain, 
A  pauseless  black  Necessity, 
Along  its  iron  and  predestined  path. 

One  landlady's  memories  of  him  are  supported  by  the 
carpet  in  his  room,  which  is  worn  in  a  circle  round 
his  table.  All  night  long  he  would  walk  round  and 
round;  in  the  morning  he  would  go  to  bed.  There  was, 
she  observed,  a  delicate  precision  in  his  manner  that 
forbade  all  familiarity.  His  prayers,  pronounced  as  if 
he  were  preaching,  she  often  heard. 

An  interior  glimpse  comes  from  a  fellow-lodger  : — 

"  I  will  tell  you  things  as  I  remember  them  at  the  Elgin  Avenue 
establishment.  There  was  a  Bengali,  who  showed  me  how  to  play 
poker ;  there  was  a  convert  parson,  a  dramatic  critic,  and  a  man 
who  acted.  I  seem  to  remember  playing  cards  with  them  better 
than  anything.  It  was  generally  then  that  Thompson  would 
come  in  at  the  front  door,  and  call  down  the  kitchen-stairs  for 
his  porridge  and  beer.  Coming  into  the  room,  he  would  talk  of 
something  he  had  seen  or  read  ;  or  of  food,  cricket,  or  clothes. 
He  wished  he  had  bought  a  suit  in  a  shop-window,  because  he  had 
given  more  for  those  he  wore.  I  fancy  he  was  not  exactly  rich  ; 
I  suppose  none  of  us  were.  He  would  eat ;  then  walk  up  and  down 
the  room  talking  at  any  ear  that  might  be  listening  or  at  none ; 
then  he  would  write  under  the  gas-jet.  He  would  leave  as  he  came. 
I  don't  suppose  he  ever  gave  me  a  look,  and  I  had  no  idea  he  was 
a  great  man.  But  I  remember  him  ;  though  for  the  rest,  I  only 
know  they  existed." 

Mr.  Wilfred  Whitten  tells  of  the  rare — perhaps  the 
only — occasion  on  which  F.  T.  dined  in  a  restaurant 
with  a  friend,  after  the  common  fashion  : — 

"  Some  seven  years  since  we  dined  together  at  the  Vienna  Cafe. 
You  remember  how,  in  the  one  conversation  which  Boswell  felt 
himself  powerless  to  report,  Johnson  '  ran  over  the  grand  scale  of 

280 


Milton  and  the  Vienna  Cafe 

human  knowledge.'  Thus  it  was  that  night.  Thompson  called 
up  the  masters  of  poetry,  and  their  mighty  lines.  I  shall  never 
forget  his  repeating  this,  from  '  Comus,'  as  one  of  the  things  in  all 
English  verse  that  he  relished — 

Not  that  nepenthe  which  the  wife  of  Thone 
In  Egypt  gave  to  Jove-born  Helena. 

These  words  fell  on  my  ear  like  the  music  of  all  poetry,  and  I  turned 
to  see  Thompson's  eyes  humid  with  a  vast  understanding.  He 
dealt  in  these  great  names  and  antiquities.  The  arts,  the  rites, 
the  mysteries,  and  the  sciences  of  eld  gave  him  their  secrets  and 
their  secret  words.  But  I  think  he  loved  the  pomp  of  facts  only 
that  he  might  transmute  it  into  the  pomp  of  dreams,  and  where 
his  dreams  ended  let  his  poetry  tell." 

Mr.  Whitten's,  like  Patmore's,  is  the  testimony  of  one 
who  knew  him  familiarly  enough  to  know  his  better  sort 
of  talk.  The  impressions  of  those  who  met  him  once 
or  twice  generally  agree  with  Mr.  William  Hyde's  : — 

"  I  remember  that  he  was  so  shy  and  nervous  that  I  felt  anxious 
not  to  say  anything  that  would  increase  his  diffidence.  The  tragedy 
of  his  aspect  was  obvious.  Of  the  glorious  moments  he  must 
have  lived  in  when  the  soul  was  master  very  few  external  traces 
could  be  seen,  save  his  eyes." 

Which  were  his  churches;  where  the  roof  to  his 
piety  ?  When  the  cross-roads  did  not  make  his  tran- 
sept and  the  shops  his  aisle,  he  made  shift  with  thin 
modern  Gothic,  with  rigid  varnished  bench  and  Belgian 
Madonnas.  His  altars  were  decked  with  brass  vases 
and  huddled  bunches  of  the  disconcerting  flowers  of 
commerce.  Being  a  late  and  irregular  comer,  he  would 
often  find  the  charwoman  dryly  banging  her  broom 
among  the  chairs.  In  the  Harrow  Road,  between  a 
printing-shop  and  a  tobacconist's,  was  the  church  nearest 
the  lodging  of  several  years.  To  St.  Mary  of  the  Angels, 
Bayswater,  he  also  went  upon  occasion.  There  was  a 
friend,  a  second  Mezzofanti  for  languages,  with  the 
language  of  poetry,  in  addition,  very  familiarly  known; 

281 


The  Londoner 

and  there,  too,  were  other  friends.  At  Lymington  he 
would  quite  naturally  become  a  more  timely  church- 
goer. At  the  foot  of  the  steep  High  Street,  past  shuttered 
town-hall  and  boarded  shops,  and  along  a  resounding 
passage,  was  the  little  church  attended  by  Coventry 
Patmore.  Here,  in  a  Roman  camp  as  formidable  as 
Caesar's, but  uncatalogued  save  in  the  Catholic  Directories, 
these  two  followed  the  Mass.  The  Church  at  such 
moments  had  no  need  of  architects.  Her  son,  St. 
Francis  of  Assisi,  had  cathedrals  and  towers  at  hand, 
but  put  them  to  no  use  ;  Francis  Thompson  had  none 
at  hand  and  was  no  poorer.  He  seemed  the  last  person 
on  earth  to  have  noted  if  the  candlesticks  came  not  from 
Cellini,  but  Birmingham ;  if  the  altar-rails  were  soap- 
stone  travesties  of  antiquity.  And  yet  he  had,  at  any 
rate  in  verse,  his  preferences.  In  "  Gilded  Gold,"  he 
refers  to 

Degenerate  worshippers  who  fall 

In  purpled  kirtle  and  brocade 

To  'parel  the  white  Mother-Maid. 

And  he  decides  that  her  image  as  it  stood  arrayed 

In  vests  of  its  self-substance  wrought 
To  measure  of  the  sculptor's  thought 

is  "  slurred  by  these  added  braveries." 

It  is  doubtful  whether  he  would  have  crossed  the  road 
to  hear  one  preacher  in  preference  to  another,  or  to 
hear  any;  it  is  certain  that  he  was  as  content  to  go  to 
his  prayers  through  a  slit  in  a  thin  brick  wall  as  under 
the  tympanum  of  Chartres.  If  instead  of  being  a 
Londoner,  with  the  English  climate,  the  disciplined  and 
formal  rows  of  benches,  to  dishearten  him,  he  had  had 
his  lodging  near  St.  Mark's  or  St.  John  Lateran,  he 
might  have  become  a  more  punctual  church-goer. 

Lionel  Johnson,  who  couples  Francis  with  the  Martyr 
Southwell   for  "devout  audacity,"  has  said   the  things 

282 


God's   Merry   Men 

that  are  to  say  of  the  sacred  poet's  familiar  attitude. 
He  quotes  the  gentleman  who  confuted  the  view  that 
man's  attitude  towards  God  must  necessarily  be  abject 
— "Not  abject!  Certainly,  it  should  be  deferential,  but 
not  abject."  Against  the  deferential  gentleman  he 
ranges  all  saints  and  poets,  "  His  carollers  and  gay 
minstrels — His  merry  men." 

And  he  had,  besides  a  devotional  familiarity,  his  own 
very  strictly  observed  devotional  formalities.  Every 
notebook  from  Ushaw  days  till  his  death  is  dedicated 
with  some  such  holy  device  as  this  : — 

1 

Deo  in  Quo  et  per  Quem  meditationes 
Ejus  remedito. 

He  had  his  triumphs  at  the  Vatican,  his  victories  at 
Farm  Street  ;  a  Pope's  messenger  sought  him  in  the 
Harrow  Road  with  his  Holiness's  thanks  for  his  trans- 
lation of  a  pontifical  ode,  and  of  course  did  not  find 
him.  There  is  a  legend  that  about  this  time  he  wrote 
an  "Ecclesiastical  History" — no  less! — put  the  MS. 
into  the  hands  of  Cardinal  Vaughan  to  beguile  the  way 
to  Rome,  and  so  lost  it.  The  disappearance  of  the  book 
might  pass  for  fact,  but  I  find  no  line  about  it  among 
his  papers,  either  before  or  after  its  alleged  existence. 
His  habit  was  to  herald  any  attempt  with  written  notes 
and  exhortations  to  himself  to  begin,  as  thus  : — "  Mem. 
(ink  in)  I  might,  Deo  Volente,  one  day  try  my  hand  at 
a  version  of  the  Imit.  in  Biblical  style,  so  far  as  it  is 
given  to  my  power."  Or  "  Revise  Pastoral ;  and  get 
buttons,  if  any  possible  chance." 

Francis  himself  did  not  doubt  his  position  as  a  Church- 
man. The  boast  he  makes  in  "  The  Lily  of  the  King  " 
is  more  than  any  bishop  would  venture. 

St.  Francis,  dining  one  day  on  broken  bread,  with  a 

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The  Londoner 

large  stone  for  table,  cried  out  to  his  companion  :  "  O 
brother  Masseo,  we  are  not  worthy  so  great  a  treasure." 
When  he  had  repeated  these  words  several  times  his 
companion  answered  :  "  Father,  how  can  you  talk  of 
treasure  where  there  is  so  much  poverty,  and  indeed 
a  lack  of  all  things  ?  For  we  have  neither  cloth,  nor 
knife,  nor  dish,  nor  table,  nor  house  ;  neither  have  we 
servant  nor  maid  to  wait  upon  us."  Then  said  St. 
Francis  :  "  And  this  is  why  I  look  upon  it  as  a  great 
treasure,  because  man  has  no  hand  in  it,  but  all  has 
been  given  us  by  Divine  Providence,  as  we  clearly  see 
in  this  bread  of  charity,  in  this  beautiful  table  of  stone, 
in  this  clear  fountain." 

Did  Francis  Thompson  mate  so  happy  a  Poverty  ? 
She  whom  he  took  in  marriage  was  a  very  shrew  in 
comparison.  In  place  of  rocky  platforms  she  gave  him 
the  restaurant's  doubtful  table-cloth,  or  maybe  he  ate 
from  paper  bags.  Broken  bread  that  is  appetising  in 
Umbria  is  heavy  in  Soho ;  and  Francis  never  drank 
from  the  clear  stream.  But  for  all  that  I  remember 
his  asserting,  with  utmost  conviction  in  his  voice, 
the  excellence  of  the  viands  set  before  him  in  a  shop 
in  Westbourne  Grove.  "  Here,  Ev.,  I  get  what  I  like," 
I  can  hear  him  say;  "here  the  beef  is  always  good; 
excellent,  Evie,  excellent,  I  say."  * 

Both  Francises  said  that  happiness  was  stored  in  self- 
denial,  but  Francis  of  Assisi  was  the  quicker  to  make 
good  his  statement  by  immediate  happiness.  The  same 
desires,  the  same  secret,  the  same  grace  possessed  two 
men  wedded  at  least  into  the  same  family.    The  contrast 

1  It  may  also  be  observed  in  passing  that,  while  he  was  more  experienced 
in  privation  than  were  any  of  his  friends,  Francis  could  be  fastidious.  It  is 
still  told  of  him  in  Sussex,  where  a  clever  cook  attended  his  invalided  appetite, 
that  he  would  make  great  demonstrations  at  the  mere  sight  of  a  dish  he 
disapproved.  Laying  down  his  knife  and  fork  this  frank  guest  would  pro- 
claim against  one  of  the  several  viands.  "Miss  Laurence,  I  hate  mutton  !" 
The  piled-up  emphasis  of  his  voice  made  such  a  sentence  tremendously 
effective.  "  Wilfrid,"  he  once  said  to  my  father,  "  Wilfrid,  the  Palace  Court 
food  is  shocking !" 

284 


■a 


The  Two  Poverties 

is  between  their  two  ladies  rather  than  themselves.     She 
whom  the  Saint  courted  in  the  stony  fields 

Where  clear 
Through  the  thin  trees  the  skies  appear 
In  delicate  spare  soil  and  fen, 
And  slender  landscape  and  austere 

was  not  the  modern  maiden — 

Ah  !  slattern,  she  neglects  her  hair, 

Her  gown,  her  shoes.    She  keeps  no  state 

As  once  when  her  pure  feet  were  bare — 

with  whom  the  poet  of  London  kept  company. 

At  times  when  he  was  most  ill  and  thin  and  cold  and 
lonely,  his  laugh,  on  joining  friends,  would  outdo  theirs 
for  jollity,  and  with  the  unjoyful  appetite  of  a  man  whose 
every  organ  was  out  of  order,  he  offered  a  grace  far 
longer  than  customary  among  the  grateful  and  pious,  a 
grace  so  long  that  his  meat  would  get  cold  while  he 
muttered,  so  long  that  he  would  sometimes  seem  to 
imagine  it  was  at  an  end  before  the  rightful  moment, 
and  take  up  his  knife  and  fork  to  start  his  meal,  only,  on 
remembering  an  omission,  to  lay  them  down  again  until 
the  end. 

His  sense  of  possession  and  privacy  in  possession  of 
the  beauties  of  nature  exceeds  Traherne's,  whose  ecstasy 
in  the  belief  that  he  owned  the  world's  treasuries  was 
trebled  by  the  thought  that  everybody  else  owned  them 
too.     Thompson  is  more  selfish  : — 

I  start — 
Thy  secrets  lie  so  bare  ! 

With  beautiful  importunacy 
All  things  plead,  '  We  are  fair  ! '    To  me 
285 


The  Londoner 

The  world's  a  morning  haunt, 
A  bride  whose  zone  no  man  hath  slipt 
But  I,  with  baptism  still  bedript 

Of  the  prime  water's  font. 

On  the  other  hand,  let  it  be  noted  that  all  he  left 
at  his  death  was  a  tin  box  of  refuse — pipes  that  would 
not  draw,  unopened  letters,  a  spirit  lamp  without  a 
wick,  pens  that  would  not  write,  a  small  abundance 
that  remained  merely  because  he  had  neglected  to  throw 
it  away.  The  Prayer  of  Poverty  had  been  half  answered 
unto  him  : — 

"  Of  thee,  O  Jesus,  I  ask  to  be  signed  with  this 
privilege ;  I  long  to  be  enriched  with  this  treasure ; 
I  beseech  Thee,  O  most  poor  Jesus,  that  for  Thy  sake,  it 
may  be  the  mark  of  me  and  mine  to  all  Eternity,  to 
possess  no  thing  our  own  under  the  sun  ;  but  to  live  in 
penury  so  long  as  this  vile  body  lasts." 

That  he  was  no  snatcher  of  review-books  is  already 
noted.  To  the  Serendipity  Shop — the  venture  of  a 
friend  in  Westbourne  Grove — he  would  often  go,  but 
never  with  any  curiosity  as  to  the  varied  prints,  books, 
and  autographs  with  which  it  was  stocked.  Some  one 
thing  would  catch  his  eye,  and  be  discussed,  but  nobody 
I  have  known  had  less  of  the  mere  passion  for  acquisi- 
tion. He  collected  nothing,  and  presents  were  accept- 
able to  him  but  as  the  outward  signs  of  kindliness  :  the 
meaning  having  once  reached  him,  he  had  little  use  for 
the  means.  At  no  time  did  he  possess  a  book-case,  nor 
sufficient  books  to  crowd  the  slenderest  shelf.  A  man 
less  encumbered  could  hardly  be  discovered  in  this 
work-a-day  world.  His  inclination  was  to  love  the 
impersonal  riches — the  free  flames,  uncaged  air,  water 
without  the  pitcher,  and  the  wandering  winds.  His 
authors  were  no  less  his  own  because  he  had  not  put 

286 


The  Spoiled  Priest 

them  on  his  shelf  and  clapped  his  autograph  upon  the 
fly-leaf. 

Physical  self-denial,  disregard  of  personal  luxuries, 
are  but  the  manifestations  of  a  spiritual  state,  of  the 
state  recommended  by  Christ :  "  Blessed  are  the  poor 
in  spirit  for  theirs  is  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven."  For 
the  Saint  this  state  has  its  pressing  calls.  He  puts  his 
virtue  to  the  proof ;  he  embraces  the  leper,  he  lectures 
the  birds,  he  is  a  man  of  action  ;  his  remotest  and  most 
spiritual  experiences  take  on  actuality  ;  the  Passion  puts 
its  mark  upon  his  hands,  and  feet,  and  side.  The  poet, 
also  pierced,  has  no  credentials.  A  man  of  inaction,  he 
also  renounces  personal  prides,  ambitions,  pleasures. 
The  leper  would  pass  Thompson  unnoticed,  and  he  was 
too  shy,  too  little  a  man  of  the  world,  to  preach  to  the 
practical  sparrows  of  the  Edgware  Road.  Though  nearly 
a  Franciscan,  and  learned  in  the  difficult  arithmetic  of 
subtraction,  he  was  necessarily  not  apt  in  the  good 
works  that  marked  the  Master.1 

The  seclusion  which,  despite  the  bond  between  reader 
and  writer,  oppresses  the  poet,  makes  him  impotent  for 
actual  good  works.  In  a  world  where  many  things  are 
ripe  for  the  doing,  he  remains  unaware  of  the  duties  of 
citizenship.  On  his  behalf,  as  for  the  enclosed  monk 
or  nun,  it  may  be  urged  that  retreat  from  all  worldly 
operations,  even  beneficent,  is  retreat  from  an  entangle- 
ment of  purposes  and  cross-purposes,  of  paradoxi- 
cal and  slipshod  good  ;  from  a  field  where  humility  is 
vanity  and  strength  goes  to  seed  in  abject  poverty  or 
abject  riches.  This  alone  were  insufficient  reason  for 
withdrawal.  There  is  a  more  positive  motive.  The 
poet's  works  are  absolute  good  works.  He  is  a  mission- 
ary even  if  he  never  helps  with  gift  or  speech  or  touch 
another   man's   distress.     The  prayers  of  the  Trappist 

1  There  were  exceptions  to  this  habitual  carelessness  ;  in  1S98  he  asked 
his  sister  for  prayers  that  a  friend  might  join  the  Church.  She  gave  them 
and  begged  his,  for  her  own  purposes,  in  fair  return. 

287 


The  Londoner 

neither  clothe  the  naked,  nor  feed  the  hungry,  but  are 
not,  even  if  judged  by  the  laws  of  expediency,  the  less 
valuable.  They  preserve  two  joyful  possessions — the  art 
of  prayer  and  the  standards  of  austerity.  They  glorify 
God.  So  too  does  Poetry.  Song,  like  Prayer,  is  for 
ever  re-stating  and  re-establishing  the  permanent  values. 
Francis  Thompson's  consciousness  of  Good  and  Evil 
is  alone  as  profitable  as  the  Bills  of  half  a  dozen 
Ministries.  And  his  consciousness  of  Good  and  Evil 
had  been  less  strong,  had  he  known  only  the  alloyed 
good  and  mitigated  evil  of  active  life,  instead  of  knowing, 
in  contemplation,  their  primaries. 

Something,  as  rigorous  as  the  vows  of  a  monk,  bound 
him  to  his  manner  of  life.  He  misused  all  the  con- 
veniences of  existence ;  sought  no  shelter  from  cold, 
kept  no  easy  hours,  mismanaged  his  food,  his  work,  his 
rest.  He  was  without  the  Silurist's  daily  ecstasies  and 
special  Sunday  "  shoots  of  bliss :  Heaven  once  a  week." 
Thompson's  Sundays  were  as  dreary  as  Kilburn  and  a 
missed  Mass  could  make  them,  as  dreary  as  a  sweated 
worker's.  He  knew,  but  neglected,  as  by  a  set  purpose, 
the  domestic  economy  of  felicity  observed  by  his  fellows 
— Herbert,  Vaughan,  Crashaw,  and  Traherne — 

That  Light,  that  Sight,  that  Thought 
Which  in  my  Soul  at  first  he  wrought. .  . . 

My  bliss 

Consists  in  this ; 

My  Duty  too 

In  this  I  view. 

It  is  a  fountain  or  a  spring 

Refreshing  me  in  everything. 

As  to  health,  if  he  was  careless  of  it  in  himself  and 
others,  he  is  excused  by  St.  Bernard's  description  of 
God  "as  the  final  health." 

"  To  our  generation  uncompromising  fasts  and  severities  of 
conduct  are  found  to  be  piteously  alien  ;    not  because,  as  rash 

288 


Crumbs   of  Actuality 

censors  say,  we  are  too  luxurious,  but  because  we  are  too  intricate, 
nervous,  devitalised.  We  find  our  austerities  ready-made.  The 
east  wind  has  replaced  the  discipline,  dyspepsia  the  hair-shirt.  .  .  . 
Merely  to  front  existence  is  a  surrender  of  self,  a  choice  of  in- 
eludibly  rigorous  abnegation." 

Such  is  the  main  argument  of  Health  and  Holiness. 
But  it  is  probable  that  he  generalised  too  liberally  from 
his  own  disabilities.  Tortures  were  not  invented  and 
practised  because  a  robuster  past  could  make  light  of 
them.  The  rack  was  always  agonising,  or  it  had  never 
been  used.  The  sailor  who  bore  his  300  lashes  in  181 2 
probably  felt  them  as  keenly  as  a  sailor  would  feel  them 
now.  East  winds  penetrated  hair-shirts.  Man  was  the 
same,  save  that  in  greater  saintliness  he  was  ready  to 
endure,  and  in  greater  cruelty  was  willing  to  inflict,  more 
pain. 

Capitulation  such  as  Thompson's  to  a  sordid  environ- 
ment may  mean  too  great  a  severance  from  other 
things  : — 

"The  perceptions  of  the  spirit,"  as  he  confessed,  "  are 
not  indefinitely  credible  and  sufficing  without  the 
occasional  confirmation  and  assurance  of  the  body." 

The  confirmation  made  to  him  was  fined  down  to  the 
minimum.  True,  one  sunrise  sufficed  for  five  years  of 
idolatry.  He  could  strike  a  fair  balance  for  his  spiritual 
load  with  a  few  crumbs  of  actuality.  It  would  seem 
that  the  greater  the  spiritual  load  the  smaller  the  range 
of  corporeal  experience  necessary  for  the  nice  adjust- 
ment of  the  scales.  Yet  the  adjustment  must  be  perfect. 
One  of  his  many  analogies  for  the  interlocking  of  our 
complementary  natures  is  as  follows  : — 

"  Holiness  is  an  oil  which  increases  a  hundred  fold 
the  energies  of  the  body,  which  is  as  the  wick.  Impor- 
tant that  this  wick  shall  not  needlessly  be  marred  during 
preparation  through  some  toughening  ascetic  process 

289  T 


The  Londoner 

which  must  inflict  certain  injury.     The  flame  is  depen- 
dent after  all  on  the  corporeal  wick." 

He  argued,  further,  from  Manning's  longevity  and 
energy,  that  the  more  copious  and  pure  the  oil,  the  more 
persistently  and  brightly  does  the  wick  burn.  The 
energising  potentialities  of  sanctity  he  illustrates  in  the 
great  works  accomplished  by  St.  Francis  despite  the 
constant  haemorrhage  of  the  stigmata. 


290 


CHAPTER   XIV:    COMMUNION   AND 
EXCOMMUNION 

Renunciation  is  the  better  part  of  possession  :  Francis 
states  very  clearly  that  compulsion  must  have  no  hand 
in  it  if  it  is  to  be  profitable.  He  writes  under  the 
heading,  "  A  distraught  maiden  complaineth  against 
enforced  virginity  " — 

Cold  is  the  snow  of  the  thawless  valleys, 
Chill  as  death  is  the  lily's  chalice, 
Only  she  who  seeks  the  valleys 
Groweth  roses  amid  the  snow. 

And  he  reiterated  that  spiritual  experiences  do  not 
endure  without  from  time  to  time  falling  back  upon 
their  base  for  supplies,  u  the  confirmation  and  assurance 
of  the  body."1  That  the  lines  of  communication  were 
cut  was  a  pressing  grief.  I  have  seen  the  sense  of 
isolation  come  up  against  him,  hold  him,  and  shake 
him.  At  such  times  he  would  be  within  sight  of  children, 
and  though  no  angels  then  "  snatched  them  from  him 
by  the  hair,"  he  could  be  conscious  that  he  was  less 
near  them  than  their  relatives.  His  praises  of  domestic 
relationships  ring  with  the  note  of  one  whose  compre- 
hension   is   sharpened   by  the  desire  of  things  out  of 

1  "  Bodily  being  is  the  analogy  of  the  soul's  being  ;  our  temporal  is  our  only 
clue  to  our  spiritual  life  "  ;  our  fleshly  senses  the  only  medium  for  our  divine 
experience.  We  are  the  symbols  of  ourselves.  To  such  thoughts  he  adds 
disjointed  notes  in  confirmation  from  the  ancient  mythologies:  "Bird-heads 
to  gods  with  man-bodies." — "  Zeus  =  Sky." 

291 


Communion  and  Excommunion 

reach.  In  an  incomplete  "  Ballad  of  Judgement  "  a  man, 
marvelling  at  his  rewards  in  Heaven,  asks  : — 

0  when  did  I  give  thee  drink  erewhile 

Or  when  embrace  Thine  unseen  feet  ? 
What  gifts  Thee  give  for  my  Lord  Christ's  smile, 
Who  am  a  guest  here  most  unmeet  ? 

and  the  answer  comes  : — 

When  thou  kissedst  thy  wife  and  children  sweet, 
(Their  eyes  are  fair  in  My  sight  as  thine) 

1  felt  the  embraces  on  My  feet 

(Lovely  their  locks  in  thy  sight,  and  Mine). 

Other  verses  of  the  same  unpublished  ballad,  though 
imperfect,  enforce  the  idea  : — 

If  a  toy  but  gladden  his  little  brothers 
(A  touch  in  caress  to  a  child's  hair  given) 

Young  Jesus'  hands  are  filled  with  prayers 
(Sweep  into  music  all  strings  of  Heaven). 

and  further  that 

....  for  his  sweet-kissed  wife 

God  kissed  him  on  his  blissful  mouth. 

Allegories  of  a  happy  road  from  bodily  to  heavenly 
experience  fill  many  a  more  complex  passage ;  here  it  is 
given  with  Chap-book  directness. 

Elsewhere  he  closely  regrets  his  loneliness,  and  re- 
pudiates the  merit  of  its  heroism  in  this  epitaph  on  the 
writer  of  "  Love  in  Dian's  Lap  "  : — 

Here  lies  one  who  could  only  be  heroic. 

How  little,  in  the  sifted  judgement,  seems 
That  swelling  sound  of  vanity  !     Still  'tis  proved 
To  be  heroic  is  an  easier  thing 
Than  to  be  just  and  good.    If  any  be 
(As  are  how  many  daily  ones  !)  who  love 
With  love  unlofty  through  no  lofty  days 
Their  little  simple  wives,  and  consecrate 

292 


The   Grief-Erudite  Heart 

Dull  deeds  with  undulled  justice  :  such  poor  livers, 
Though  they  as  little  look  to  be  admired 
As  thou  look'st  to  admire,  are  of  more  prizeful  rate 
Than  he  who  worshipped  with  unmortal  love 
A  nigh  unmortal  woman,  and  knew  to  take 
The  pricking  air  of  snowy  sacrifice. 

Being  without  the  occasional  "  confirmation,"  he 
yearned  for  it ;  without  that  particular  chance  of  being 
daily  just  and  good,  he  saw  in  it  the  sum  of  life's  pur- 
pose. And  when  he  was  threatened  with  the  approach 
of  too  close  affection,  he  grew  alarmed,  crying  : — 

Of  pleasantness  I  have  not  any  art 
In  this  grief-erudite  heart. 

0  Sweet  !  no  flowers  have  withered  on  my  hair, 

For  none  have  wreathed  them  there  ; 

And  not  to  me,  as  unto  others'  lots, 

Fell  flowerful  youth,  but  such  the  thorns  that  bare 

Still  faithful  to  my  hair. 

0  sweet  !  for  me  pluck  no  forget-me-nots, 

But  scoop  for  me  the  Lethe  water  dull 

Which  yields  the  sole  elixir  that  can  bless — 

Utter  forgetfulness — 

And  I  shall  know  that  thou  art  pitiful. 

Another  form  of  his  painful,  elaborate,  and  even  dis- 
ingenuous attitude  towards  happiness  was  distrust. 
"  All  life  long  he  had  been  learning  how  to  be  wretched," 
he  quotes  from  Hawthorne,  "  and  now,  with  the  lesson 
thoroughly  at  heart,  he  could  with  difficulty  comprehend 
his  little  airy  happiness  "  ;  then,  continuing  in  his  own 
verse  : — 

In  a  mortal  garden  they  set  the  poet 
With  mortal  maiden  and  mortal  child  ; 

•  •*••• 

In  a  mortal  garden  they  set  the  poet ; 

As  a  trapped  bird  he  breathed  wild. 

He  had  smiled  in  sorrow  :  not  now  he  smiled. 

•  ••••• 

293 


Communion  and   Excommunion 

But  into  the  garden  pacing  slowly, 

Came  a  lady  with  eyes  inhuman.   .   .   . 

And  the  sad  slow  mouth  of  him  smiled  again, 

This  lady  I  know,  and  she  is  real, 

I  know  this  lady,  and  she  is  Pain  ! 

The  Lady  Pain  figures,  in  one  sense,  in  "  Love  in  Dian's 
Lap."  His  only  real  love  was  itself  a  thing  most  strictly 
circumscribed  ;  it  existed  only  to  be  checked  : — 

"  I  yielded  to  the  insistent  commands  of  my  con- 
science and  uprooted  my  heart — as  I  supposed.  Later, 
the  renewed  presence  of  the  beloved  lady  renewed  the 
love  I  thought  deracinated.  For  a  while  I  swung 
vacillant.  I  thought  I  owed  it  to  her  whom  I  loved 
more  than  my  love  of  her  finally  to  unroot  that  love, 
to  pluck  away  the  last  fibres  of  it,  that  1  might  be  beyond 
treachery  to  my  resolved  duty.  And  at  this  second 
effort  I  finished  what  the  first  had  left  incomplete. 
The  initial  agony  had  really  been  decisive,  and  to 
complete  the  process  needed  only  resolution.  But 
it  left  that  lady  still  the  first,  the  one  veritable,  full- 
orbed,  and  apocalyptic  love  of  my  life.  Through  her 
was  shewn  me  the  uttermost  of  what  love  could  be — 
the  possible  divinities  and  celestial  prophecies  of  it. 
None  other  could  have  taught  them  quite  thus,  for  none 
other  had  in  her  the  like  unconscious  latencies  of  utter 
spirituality.  Surely  she  will  one  day  realise  them,  as  by 
her  sweet,  humble,  and  stainless  life  she  has  deserved 
to  do." 

Of  one  consolation  he  writes  to  her  : — 

"The  concluding  words  of  your  letter,  'friend  and 
child,'  reminded  me  of  some  lines  written  at  the  time 
I  was  composing  "  Amphicypellon."  They  were  written 
hastily  to  relieve  an  outburst  of  emotion  ;  and,  not 
thinking  there  was  any  poetry  in  them  worthy  of  you, 
I  never  showed  them  you.     But  when  1  read  those  con- 

294 


Pain 

eluding  words  of  your  letter,  I  resolved  to  transcribe 
them  that  you  might  see  you  could  not  have  addressed 
me  more  according  to  my  wish." 

These  verses  were  : — 

Whence  comes  the  consummation  of  all  peace, 

And  dignity  past  fools  to  comprehend, 
In  that  dear  favour  she  for  me  decrees, 

Sealed  by  the  daily-dulled  name  of  Friend, — 

Debased  with  what  alloy, 

And  each  knave's  cheapened  toy. 
This  from  her  mouth  doth  sweet  with  sweetness  mend, 
This  in  her  presence  is  its  own  white  end. 

Fame  counts  past  fame 

The  splendour  of  this  name  ; 
This  is  calm  deep  of  unperturbed  joy. 

Now,  Friend,  short  sweet  outsweetening  sharpest  woes  ! 

In  wintry  cold  a  little,  little  flame — 
So  much  to  me  that  little  ! — here  I  close 

This  errant  song.     0  pardon  its  much  blame  ! 

Now  my  grey  day  grows  bright 

A  little  ere  the  night ; 
Let  after-livers  who  may  love  my  name, 
And  gauge  the  price  I  paid  for  dear-bought  fame, 

Know  that  at  end, 

Pain  was  well  paid,  sweet  Friend, 
Pain  was  well  paid  which  brought  me  to  your  sight. 

Pain  he  proclaimed  a  pleasure.  Why,  then,  did  he 
call  his  pains  a  sacrifice  ?  "  Delight  has  taken  Pain  to 
her  heart "  was  the  sum  of  St.  Francis's  teaching  on  a 
subject  dear  to  the  guest  at  the  Franciscan  monastery- 
gates.     He  himself  wrote  a  commentary  on  St.  Francis  : 

"  Pain,  which  came  to  man  as  a  penalty,  remains 
with  him  as  a  consecration ;  his  ignominy,  by  a 
Divine  ingenuity,  he  is  enabled  to  make  his  exaltation. 
Man,  shrinking  from  pain,  is  a  child  shuddering  on 
the  verge  of  the  water,   and  crying,  '  It   is   so   cold  ! ' 

295 


Communion  and   Excommunion 

How  many  among  us,  after  repeated  lessonings  of 
experience,  are  never  able  to  comprehend  that  there 
is  no  special  love  without  special  pain  ?  To  such 
St.  Francis  reveals  that  the  Supreme  Love  is  itself  full 
of  Supreme  Pain.  It  is  fire,  it  is  torture ;  his  human 
weakness  accuses  himself  of  rashness  in  provoking  it, 
even  while  his  soul  demands  more  pain,  if  it  be  necessary 
for  more  Love.  So  he  revealed  to  one  of  his  companions 
that  the  pain  of  his  stigmata  was  agonising,  but  was 
accompanied  by  a  sweetness  so  intense  as  made  it 
ecstatic  to  him.  Such  is  the  preaching  of  his  words 
and  example  to  an  age  which  understands  it  not.  Pain 
is.  Pain  is  inevadible.  Pain  may  be  made  the  instru- 
ment of  joy.  It  is  the  angel  with  the  fiery  sword 
guarding  the  gates  of  the  lost  Eden.  The  flaming 
sword  which  pricked  man  from  Paradise  must  wave 
him  back." 

The  something  awry,  the  disordering  of  sympathy, 
the  distorting  perspective,  is  hard  to  name.  Perhaps 
loneliness,  perhaps  disease,  perhaps  his  poetry,  perhaps 
the  devil.  But  it  was  there — a  distemper,  with  his  own 
discomfort  for  its  worst  symptom.  Like  the  child  that 
meditates  upon  the  sweet  it  sucks,  while  it  watches  the 
progress  of  a  squabbling  world  in  the  back-yard,  he 
could  be  above  the  control  of  his  environment ;  but 
the  sweet  once  sucked,  the  poetry  gone,  he  heard  and 
saw  and  felt,  and  was  sad  and  sore. 

To  each  a  separate  loveliness, 
Environed  by  Thy  sole  caress. 

0  Christ  the  Just,  and  can  it  be 

1  am  made  for  love,  no  love  for  me  ? 
Of  two  loves,  one  at  least  be  mine  ; 
Love  of  earth,  though  I  repine, 

I  have  not,  nor,  O  just  Christ,  Thine  ! 
Can  life  miss,  doubly  sacrificed, 
Kiss  of  maid  and  kiss  of  Christ  ? 
Ah,  can  I,  doubly-wretched,  miss 
Maid's  kiss,  and  Thy  perfect  kiss  ? 
296 


Reticence 

Not  all  kisses,  woe  is  me  ! 

Are  kissed  true  and  holily. 

Not  all  clasps ;  there  be  embraces 

Add  a  shame-tip  to  the  daisies. 

These  if,  O  dear  Christ,  I  have  known 

Let  all  my  loveless  lips  atone. 

In  a  letter  to  A.  M  :— 

"...  I  have  suffered  from  reticence  all  my  life  :  the 
opening  out  of  hearts  and  minds,  where  there  is  con- 
fidence, puts  an  end  to  so  much  secret  trouble  that 
would  grow  monstrous  if  it  were  brooded  over." 

And  in  his  verse  : — 

.  .  .  The  once  accursed  star  which  me  did  teach 
To  make  of  silence  my  familiar. 

And  again,  from  Elgin  Avenue  : — 

"  Dear  Mrs.  Meynell, — I  have  been  musing  a  little  on 
the  theme  mentioned  between  us  this  afternoon  ;  and 
some  frequent  thoughts  have  returned  to  me — or,  I 
should  say,  recollections  of  frequent  experience.  (The 
theme  1  mean  is  the  difficulty  of  communicating  one- 
self. By  the  way,  R.  L.  S.'s  theme  is  more  distinct  from 
yours  than  I  quite  realised  this  afternoon.  His  is  sin- 
cerity of  intercourse,  yours  is  rather  adequacy  of  inter- 
course, and  the  two,  though  they  may  overlap  and  react 
on  each  other,  are  far  from  identical.) 

"  But  the  thoughts  of  which  I  speak  (they  are  but  one 
or  two)  are  as  useless  to  myself  as  pebbles  would  be  to 
a  savage,  who  had  neither  skill  to  polish  them  nor 
knowledge  whether  they  were  worth  the  polishing.  So 
I  am  moved  to  send  them  to  the  lapidary.  If  anything 
should  appear  in  them  worth  the  saying,  how  glad  I 
would  be  that  it  should  find  in  you  a  sayer.  But  it  is  a 
more  possible  chance  that  poor  thoughts  of  mine  may, 
by  a  beautiful  caprice  of  nature,  stir  subtle  thoughts  in 
you.  When  branches  are  so  thickly  laden  as  yours,  a 
child's  pebble  may  bring  down  the  fruit. 

297 


Communion  and   Excommunion 

"  First,  then,  there  is  one  obstacle  to  communication 
which  exists  little,  if  at  all,  for  the  generality,  but   is 
omnipresent  with  the  sensitive  and  meditative  who  are 
destitute    of    nimble    blood.     I    mean   the  slow  and  in- 
determinate beginnings  of  their  thought.     For  example, 
such   a  person   is  looking  at  a  landscape.     Her  (suffer 
me  to  use  the  feminine  pronoun — it  takes  the  chill  off 
the  egotism  of  the  thing,  to  assume  even  by  way  of 
speech,   that   in   analysing   my    own    experience    I    am 
analysing  yours)  companion   asks  her,   '  What  are  you 
thinking  of  ? '     A  child  under  such   circumstances    (to 
illustrate    by   an    extreme    antithesis)    would   need   no 
questioning.     Its  vivid,  positive  thoughts  and  sensations 
have  to  themselves   a  glib   and   unpremeditated   voice. 
But  she?     She  is  hardly  thinking:  she  is  feeling.     Yet 
'  feeling '    is   too   determinate   and   distinctive   a   term : 
nay,  her  state  is  too  sub-intellectual  for  the  term  to  be 
adequate.     It   is  sensoriness   instinct  with   mind  ;    it    is 
mind  subdued  to  sensoriness.     She  feels  in  her  brain. 
She  thinks  at  her  periphery.     It  is  blended  twilight  of 
intellect  and  sensation  ;  it  is  the  crepuscular  of  thought. 
It  is  a   state  whose  one  possible    utterance   would   be 
music.     Thought  in  this  subtle  stage   cannot  pass  into 
words  because  it  lacks  the  detail ;  as  the  voice,  without 
division,  cannot  pass  into  speech  ;  as  a  smooth  and  even 
crystal  has  no  brilliance.     To  that  '  What  are  you  think- 
ing of  ?  '  she  can  only  answer  '  Nothing  '  or  '  Nothing  in 
particular,'  and  not  unlikely,  her  companion,  seeing  that 
she  was  full  of  apparent  thought,  is  discouraged  at  what 
seems  her  unsympathetic  reticence.     Yet  she  longed  to 
utter  herself,  and  envied  the  people  who,  at  a  moment's 
notice,  can  take  a  rough  pull  of  their  thoughts.     If  one 
could  answer, '  Stay  a  while,  till  my  thoughts  have  mounted 
sufficiently  to  burst  their  dykes.' — But  no  :  by  that  time 
his    interest   would    have  faded,  and  her  words  would 
find  him  listless.     She  towers  so  high  to  stoop  on  her 
quarry,  that  the  spectator  loses  sight  of  her,  and  thinks 

298 


Least   Imperfect  Sympathy 

she  has  lost  sight  of  it.  And  the  habit  so  engendered 
makes  one  slow  of  speech  apart  from  slowness  of 
thought.  One  cannot  at  the  first  signal  mobilise  one's 
words.  How  one  wonders  at  the  men,  who,  with  an 
infinitely  smaller  vocabulary,  have  it  always  on  a  war- 
footing,  and  can  instantly  concentrate  on  a  given  subject. 

"Another  point  is  that  power  of  communication  in 
oneself  is  conditioned  by  power  of  receptiveness  in 
others.  The  one  is  never  perfect ;  neither,  therefore, 
can  the  other  be.  For  entire  self-revelation  to  another, 
we  require  to  feel  that  even  the  weak  or  foolish  impulsive 
things  we  may  let  drop,  will  be  received  without  chill, — 
nay,  even  with  sympathy,  because  the  utterer  is  loved. 
That  priceless  'other's'  principle  must  be  (to  parody 
Terence  without  an  attempt  at  metre)  Tuns  sum,  niltuum 
mi  alienum  puto.  But  such  an  '  other '  is  not  among 
men — no,  nor  women  either.  The  perfectest  human 
sympathy  is  only  the  least  imperfect. 

"Then  again,  when  we  can  communicate  ourselves 
by  words,  it  may  often  become  a  sensible  effort  to  a 
sensitive  person  through  the  mere  dead  weight  of  lan- 
guage, the  gross  actualities  of  speech  : — exactly  as  to 
delicate  you  a  lovely  scene  loses  half  its  attraction,  if  it 
must  be  reached  by  the  fatigue  of  walking  to  it. 

"  Finally,  I  think  there  is  the  fact  that,  in  what  concerns 
their  veritable  spirit,  all  mortals  are  feminine.  In  the 
mysteries  of  that  inner  Bona  Dea,  speech  is  male,  and 
may  not  enter.  We  feel  that  we  could  only  admit  to 
them  the  soft  silence  of  sight.  But  then — we  cannot 
say  :  '  Draw  aside  my  flesh  and  see.'     Would  we  could  ! 

"That  reminds  me  of  what  you  alluded  to  about  the 
inefficiency  of  the  eyes.  I  am  so  glad  you  mean  to 
touch  on  that.  I  see  much  about  the  superior  eloquence 
of  eyes,  &c.  But  it  always  seems  to  me  they  have  just 
the  eloquence  of  a  foreign  tongue,  in  which  we  catch 
only  enough  significance,  from  the  speaker's  tone  and 
the  casual  sound  of  some  half-familiar  word  to  make  us 

299 


Communion  and  Excommunion 

pained  and  desperate  that  we  can  comprehend  no  more. 
There  is  a  turn  in  Seneca — 

Illi  mors  gravis  incubat, 
Qui,  nimis  notus  omnibus, 
Ignotus  moritur  sibi. 

'  On  him  death  lies  heavy,  who,  too  known  of  all,  dies 
unknown  to  himself '  —  '  Too  known  of  all  ! ' — with 
myself  I  am  but  too  intimate  ;  and  I  profess  that  I  find 
him  a  dull  boy,  a  very  barren  fellow.  Your  Delphic 
oracles  notwithstanding,  a  man's  self  is  the  most  un- 
profitable acquaintance  he  can  make  ;  let  him  shun  such 
scurvy  companions.  But,  '  nimis  notus  omnibus  ! '  If 
this  were  the  most  likely  terror  death  could  yield,  O 
Lucius  Annaeus  ! — who  is  known  to  one?  In  that  Mare 
Clausum  of  our  being,  sealed  by  the  conventing  powers 
of  birth  and  death,  with  life  and  time  acceding  signa- 
tories, what  alien  trafficker  has  plied  ?  Far  heavier, 
Luci  mi,  death  weighs  on  him,  who  dies  too  known  of 
himself,  and  too  little  of  any  man.  I  have  bored 
you,  I  feel,  unpardonably.  Repentantly  your  Francis 
Thompson.  But  my  repentance  does  not  extend  to 
suppressing  the  letter,  you  observe.  A  most  human 
fashion  of  penitence  !  " 

But  though  "  too  little  known  of  any  man,"  the  poet 
has  faith  in  the  reader's  understanding  greater  than  the 
reader's  faith  in  his  meanings.  As  for  the  reader,  the 
best  probe  for  seeming  obscurity  is  faith.  Let  an  ex- 
ample be  taken  from  the  parish  priest  who  read  "The 
Hound  of  Heaven "  six  times  before  he  understood. 
Faith  in  divine  meanings,  and  many  blindfolded  readings, 
are  better  beginnings  than  explanations.  Sign  articles 
with  your  master-poets  ;  sit,  idly  perhaps,  in  their  work- 
shops, and  one  day  you  find  yourself  promoted  from 
apprentice  to  partner.  Their  obscurities  are  your  limita- 
tions, your  limitations  their  obscurities,  and  you  and 
they  must  have  it  out  between  you.     And  even  at  the 

300 


Hearer  and   Utterer 

moment  when  the  Poet  is  most  obscure,  he  is  most  plain 
with  you,  most  intimate,  most  dependent  on  your  per- 
sonal understanding  and  acceptance.  Then  most  of  all 
does  he  give  you  his  confidence,  have  faith  in  your  faith; 
then,  most  of  all,  does  the  anchor  of  his  meaning  need 
the  clutch  of  your  understanding,  the  kite  of  his  fancy 
need  the  tail  of  your  comprehension.  He  is  riding  such 
waves  and  flying  in  such  winds  of  thought  that  he  were 
lost  without  you — 

We  speak  a  lesson  taught  we  know  not  how, 

And  what  it  is  that  from  us  flows 

The  hearer  better  than  the  utterer  knows. 

And  his  confession  of  his  dependence  on  you  as  his 
colleague  makes  a  laureate  of  you.  See  that  you  be  a 
Wordsworth  rather  than  a  Nathaniel  Pye  among  readers. 
The  silence  in  which  he  was  most  unhappy  was  a 
silence  in  poetry.  Comparing  his  case  to  the  earth's 
life  in  winter,  "  tearless  beneath  the  frost-scorched  sod," 
he  writes : — 

My  lips  have  drought,  and  crack, 

By  laving  music  long  unvisited. 

Beneath  the  austere  and  macerating  rime 

Draws  back  constricted  in  their  icy  urns 

The  genial  flame  of  Earth,  and  there 

With  torment  and  with  tension  does  prepare 

The  lush  disclosures  of  the  vernal  time. 

His  second  period  of  melancholy  was  the  more  severe ; 
he  thought  he  saw  in  it,  against  all  his  convictions  in 
regard  to  the  rhythm  or  the  resurrections  of  life,  the 
signs  of  his  poetry's  final  death.  He  suffered  the 
torment  and  the  tension  in  preparation  for  what  he  was 
convinced  would  be  still-born  song. 

The  depression  first  came  upon  him  with  the  publica- 
tion of  New  Poems — 

"Though  my  aims  are  unfulfilled,  my  place  insecure, 
many  things  warn  me  that  with  this  volume  I  am  pro- 
bably closing  my  brief  poetic  career." 

301 


Communion  and   Excommunion 

He  had  already  written  of  himself  as  one 

Whose  gaze  too  early  fell 

Upon  her  ruinous  eyes  and  ineludible. 

,  .  •  •  •  • 

And  first  of  her  embrace 
She  was  not  coy,  and  gracious  were  her  ways, 
That  I  forgot  all  Virgins  to  adore. 
Nor  did  I  greatly  grieve 
To  bear  through  arid  days 
The  pretty  foil  of  her  divine  delays  ; 
And  one  by  one  to  cast 
Life,  love,  and  health, 
Content,  and  wealth 
Before  her,  thinking  ever  on  her  praise, 
Until  at  last 
Nought  had  I  left  she  would  be  gracious  for. 

In  "The  Sere  of  the  Leaf,"  an  early  poem  written  at 
the  end  of  1890,  and  published  in  Merry  England, 
January  1891,  he  answers  Katharine  Tynan,  a  poet  who 
had  spoken  of  a  full  content : — 

I  know  not  equipoise,  only  purgatorial  joys, 
Grief's  singing  to  the  soul's  instrument, 

And  forgetfulness  which  yet  knoweth  it  doth  forget : 
But  content- — what  is  content  ? 

He  makes  a  like  protest  in  the  "  Renegade  Poet  on  the 
Poet":— 

"...  Did  we  give  in  to  that  sad  dog  of  a  Robert  Louis, 
we  must  needs  set  down  the  poor  useless  poet  as  a  son 
of  joy.  But  the  title  were  an  irony  more  mordant  than 
the  title  of  the  hapless  ones  to  whom  it  likens  him — 
Filles  de  joie?  O  rather  filles  d'amertume.  And  if  the 
pleasure  they  so  mournfully  purvey  were  lofty  and 
purging,  as  it  is  abysmal  and  corrupting,  then  would 
Mr.  Stevenson's  parallel  be  just  ;  but  then,  too,  from 
ignoble  victims  they  would  become  noble  ministrants. 

302 


"Needy  with  a   Double  Need' 

.  .  .  Like  his  sad  sisters,  but  with  that  transfiguring 
difference,  this  poet,  this  son  of  bitterness,  sows  in 
sorrow  that  men  may  reap  in  joy.  He  serves  his 
pleasure,  say  you,  R.  L.  S.  ?  Tis  a  strange  pleasure,  if 
so  it  be." 

Forsaken,  his  complaints  were  doubled.  Of  many 
lamentations  for  his  muse,  the  following  lines  to  W.  M. 
have  a  personal  bearing  : — 

Ah,  gone  the  days  when  for  undying  kindness 
I  still  could  render  you  undying  song  ! 
You  yet  can  give,  but  I  can  give  no  more ; 
Fate,  in  her  extreme  blindness, 
Has  wrought  me  so  great  wrong. 
I  am  left  poor  indeed  ; 
Gone  is  my  sole  and  amends-making  store, 
And  I  am  needy  with  a  double  need. 

Behold  that  I  am  like  a  fountained  nymph, 
Lacking  her  customed  lymph, 
The  longing  parched  in  stone  upon  her  mouth, 
Unwatered  by  its  ancient  plenty.     She 
(Remembering  her  irrevocable  streams), 
A  Thirst  made  marble,  sits  perpetually 
With  sundered  lips  of  still-memorial  drouth. 

"  I  shall  never  forget  when  he  told  me,"  writes  Mr. 
Wilfred  Whitten,  "  under  the  mirrored  ceiling  of  the 
Vienna  Cafe  that  he  would  never  write  poetry  again." 

At  one  time  he  would  declare  "  Every  great  poem  is 
a  human  sacrifice  " ;  but  at  another  : — 

"  It  is  usual  to  suppose  that  poets,  because  their 
feelings  are  more  delicate  than  other  men's,  must  needs 
suffer  more  terribly  in  the  great  calamities  which  agonise 
all  men.  But,  omitting  from  the  comparison  the  merely 
insensible,  the  idea  may  be  questioned.  The  delicate 
nature  stops  at  a  certain  degree  of  agony,  as  the  deli- 
cate piano  at  a  certain  strength  of  touch." 

303 


Communion  and  Excommunion 

And  at  another,  in  an  early  note-book  : — 

"The  main  function  of  poetry  is  to  be  a  fruitful 
stimulus.  That  is,  to  minister  to  those  qualities  in  us 
which  are  capable  of  increase.  Otherwise,  it  is  a  sterile 
luxury.  Nor  should  it  be  made  to  minister  to  qualities 
which  are  mischievous  by  much  increase.  Sought 
mainly  to  provoke  waning  emotion,  it  is  a  sterile  luxury  ; 
sought  mainly  to  stimulate  crescent  emotion  a  pernicious 
luxury." 

In  view  of  these  various  accounts  of  the  poetic 
function  one  must  ask  :  Were  the  sorrows  necessary  ? 
were  they  real  ?  One  mistrusts  the  poet,  to  whom 
joy  must  necessarily  often  come  in  the  affirmation  of 
distress. 

One  may  argue  that  Thompson  must  have  been  happy 
on  the  score  of  his  poetry.  As  a  poet,  no  doubt,  he  was  ; 
but  not  necessarily  as  a  man.  The  two  states  did  not 
overlap.  He  says  in  a  letter  to  a  friend  that  he  did  not 
realise  that  Sister  Songs,  so  poor  a  thing,  would  give 
pleasure ;  whereas  in  verse  he  speaks  of  sending  it 
exultingly. 

His  "  I  have  no  poetry,"  like  the  communicant's  "  I 
am  unworthy,"  is  but  the  prelude  to  the  embrace.  In 
the  "To  a  Broom  Branch  at  Twilight"  (Merry  England, 
November  1891),  he  declares  that  there  are  songs  in  the 
branches — 

I  and  they  are  wild  for  clasping, 
But  you  will  not  yield  them  me. 

The  thought  that  silence  is  the  lair  of  sound  was  his 
own  ample  consolation  for  other  unproductive  periods  : 
but  now  as  he  grew  ill  and  really  silent,  he  felt  that 
silence  could  nurture  only  silence. 

His  pride  faces  his  distress;  they  stare  each  other  out 
of  countenance.     It  is  certain  that  he  often  joined  in 

304 


"  Curse  of  Destinate  Verse  ' 

George  Herbert's  address  to  a  Providence  who  has 
made  man  "the  secretary  of  her  praise,"  though  "beasts 
fain  would  sing,"  and  "trees  be  tuning  on  their  native 
lute  "  :— 

Man  is  the  world's  high-priest ;  he  doth  present 

The  sacrifice  for  all ;  while  they  below 

Unto  the  service  mutter  an  assent 

Such  as  springs  use  that  fall,  and  winds  that  blow. 

And  against  the  many  contrary  passages  of  Francis's 
may  also  be  set  his  on  the  poet's  happiness  : — 

What  bitterness  was  overpaid 
By  one  full  verse  !  world's  love,  world's  pelf 
I  fillipped  from  me,  and  but  prayed 
Boon  of  my  scantly  yielded  self. 

Here  the  "  curse  of  destinate  verse  "  reads  like  a  blessing. 
Yet,  strictly  speaking,  he  found  that  unwritten  predes- 
tinate verse  means  an  ill  case  : — 

For  ever  the  songs  I  sing  are  sad 
With  the  songs  I  never  sing. 

His  complaint  is  not  against  the  verse  that  gets  written, 
which  even  when  sad  of  origin  is  a  boon  :  "Deep  grief 
or  pain,  may,  and  has  in  my  case,  found  immediate 
outlet  in  poetry." 

To  his  view  of  others  on  previous  pages  must  be 
added  his  attitude  towards  the  author  of  "The  Anthem 
of  Earth,"  of  "The  Hound  of  Heaven,"  of  "Shelley." 
One  who  went  to  the  task  of  reviewing  his  contem- 
poraries heavy,  not  with  distaste,  but  with  pent-up 
potential  admirations,  who  had  an  appetite  at  once 
insatiable  and  fastidious  for  all  literature,  must  needs 
have  enjoyed  in  relaxation   the  splendours  of  his  own 

305  U 


Communion  and   Excommunion 

verse.1  But  not  merely  as  critic  did  Francis  Thompson 
realise  the  greatness  of  Thompson.  The  innermost 
chambers  of  his  consciousness  buzzed  with  the  certainty 
of  his  poetic  gravity  and  significance.  He  trusted  the 
quality  of  the  poetry  within  him  as  an  ordinary  man  trusts 
the  beat  of  his  pulse  and  counts  upon  it.  There  were 
anxieties  of  composition  and,  of  course,  the  ebb  and 
flow  of  satisfaction  in  himself  and  a  final  despair.  But 
before  that  he  had  known  that  he  was,  and  he  still  knew 
that  he  had  been,  a  poet.  That  is  why  he  is  so  often 
the  laureate  of  his  own  verse — 

Before  mine  own  elect  stood  I, 

And  said  to  Death  : — '  Not  these  shall  die.' 

I  issued  mandate  royally, 
^bade  Decay  : — '  Avoid  and  fly  ; 

For  I  am  fatal  unto  thee.' 

I  sprinkled  a  few  drops  of  verse, 
And  said  to  Ruin,  '  Quit  thy  hearse '  : 

To  my  loved,  '  Pale  not,  come  with  me  ; 
I  will  escort  thee  down  the  years, 

With  me  thou  walk'st  immortally.' 

These  vaunting  rhymes  were  wrritten  that  he  might 
go  on  to  declare  his  undoing,  being  now  stripped  of  his 
songs.  It  was  true,  of  course,  that  he  lost,  not  the 
poetry,  but  the  functions  of  the  poet.  In  exquisite  lines 
he  begs  his  muses  to  stay  their  flight,  and  his  exquisite 

1  With  nothing  that  he  has  to  say  of  another  poet  is  it  so  impossible  to 
agree  as  with  his  own  estimate  of  the  relative  importance  of  the  sections  of 
New  Poems — 

"  Creccas  Cottage,  Pantasaph,  November  1S96. 

"  My  dear  Doubi.eday, — I  regret  that  I  cannot  consent  to  the  omission  of 
the  translations.  If  anything  is  to  be  left  out,  it  must  be  the  section  Ultima, 
not  the  translations.  I  said  at  Pantasaph  that  I  would  keep  these,  whatever  I 
left  out.  They  were  held  over  from  my  first  book,  and  I  will  not  hold  them 
over  again.  I  regard  the  '  Heard  on  the  Mountain '  as  a  feat  in  diction  and 
metre  ;  and  in  this  respect  Coventry  Patmore  agrees  with  me.  But  I  do  not 
at  all  mind  leaving  out  the  section  Ultima. — Yours,  F.  T." 

306 


His  Confidence 

lines  belie  the  convention  that  they  have  flown,  that  the 
shrines  of  his  heart  are  empty. 

In  Mr.  Wilfred  Whitten's  obituary  notice  of  Thompson 
there  is  report  at  first  hand  of  the  poet's  satisfaction  in 
that  his  poetry  was  immortal.     He  quotes  : — 

The  sleep-flower  sways  in  the  wheat  its  head, 
Heavy  with  dreams,  as  that  with  bread  ; 
The  goodly  grain  and  the  sun-flushed  sleeper 
The  reaper  reaps,  and  Time  the  reaper. 

I  hang  'mid  men  my  needless  head, 

And  my  fruit  is  dreams,  as  theirs  is  bread  : 

The  goodly  men  and  the  sun-hazed  sleeper 

Time  shall  reap,  but  after  the  reaper 

The  world  shall  gleam  of  me,  me  the  sleeper  ! 

And  he  adds  :  "  When  Francis  Thompson  wrote  these 
verses,  he  did  not  indulge  a  fitful  or  exalted  hope ; 
he  expressed  the  quiet  faith  of  his  post-poetic  years. 
Thompson  knew  that  above  the  grey  London  tumult, 
in  which  he  fared  so  ill,  he  had  hung  a  golden  bell 
whose  tones  would  one  day  possess  men's  ears.  He 
believed  that  his  name  would  be  symphonised  on  their 
lips  with  Milton  and  Dryden  and  Keats.  This  he  told 
me  himself  in  words  too  quiet,  obscure,  and  long  ago 
for  record.     But  he  knew  that  Time  would  reap  first." 


307 


CHAPTER   XV:    CHARACTERISTICS 

The  poet  is  important,  present,  manifest  to  the  poet. 
His  poetry  is  an  addition  to  his  state,  which  yet  is  com- 
plete without  it.  The  state  of  poetry,  the  state  of  the 
poet,  has  superfluity  escaping  into  song.  It  is  this 
superfluity  that  makes,  not  the  poet,  but  the  poetry- 
book.  If  Thompson  had  only  written  of  his  experi- 
ences as  a  poet,  he  would  have  written  fine  poetry ; 
when  he  wrote  of  the  poet's  songs  he  made  songs,  when 
he  wrote  of  the  poet's  communings  with  God  and 
Nature  he  made  more  songs,  and,  to  make  songs,  need 
never  have  written  directly  of  God  and  Nature.  In  one 
sense  his  descriptions  of  the  poet's  throes  are  out  of 
all  proportion  to  their  product.  He  tells  you  so  often 
of  his  Song,  that  it  might  be  complained  he  had  no 
time  for  singing.  He  will  compose  a  poem  to  show 
he  is  Muse-forsaken,  or  to  establish  the  fact  that  his 
lady  is  immortal  only  in  his  verse  ;  it  hardly  matters 
whether  he  wrote  otherwise  of  her  or  not.  He  will 
tell  you,  with  supremest  diction,  that  his  poppy  and 
he  lie  safe  in  leaved  rhyme.  The  great  bulk  of  his 
poetry  is  about  his  poetry — that  is,  you  might  read  his 
three  volumes  and  think  they  were  but  prefaces  to 
thirty-three.  Really  they  are  the  index  not  to  forty- 
eight  other  volumes,  but  to  the  forty-eight  years  of 
the  poet's  existence — to  the  Poet,  that  is. 

"  The  more  a  man  gives  his  life  to  poetry,  the  less 
poetry  he  writes,  "  was  Thompson's  own  experience. 

This  harping  upon  himself  is  notable.  His  preoccu- 
pation is  poetry — and  the  poet.     It  is  not  a  matter  of 

308 


The  Maker 

selfishness  but  of  difference.  New  Poems  meets  with 
many  objections  on  this  score,  for  sharp  distinctions 
within  the  species  are  always  resented.  The  presence 
of  the  man  is  resented,  and  the  presence  of  the  poet,  or 
prophet,  is  resented.  But  that  he  has  his  own  place  in 
creation  he  knows  well  enough.  Isaiah  knew  it  ;  and 
when  one  of  his  kind  says — 

This  dread  Theology  alone 

Is  mine, 

Most  native  and  my  own  ; 

And  ever  with  victorious  toil 

When  I  have  made 

Of  the  deific  peaks  dim  escalade, 

My  soul  with  anguish  and  recoil 

Doth  like  a  city  in  an  earthquake  rock, 

With  deeper  menace  than  for  other  men, 

he  is  proclaiming  a  family  egoism  that  can  no  more  be 
"  pooh-poohed "  than  a  racial  pigment  or  tribal  dis- 
tinction, the  stature  of  the  pygmies  or  the  stripe  of  the 
zebra.  The  tribal  segregation  of  the  spirit  is  distrusted, 
however,  because  it  defies  scientific  classification.  It  is 
known  as  madness,  saintliness,  obscurity,  affectation, 
"  nerves,"  mania,  fanaticism,  conceit,  according  to  its 
symptoms  in  a  Blake,  or  a  Jacopone  da  Todi ;  all  its 
kinds  are  labelled,  but  it  is  never  brought  to  exact  order. 
The  variousness  of  degree  in  the  poetic  character  is  a 
necessity  of  the  case.  The  poet  makes  the  difference 
because  he  makes  his  own  world,  his  own  scope,  his 
own  experience.  If  he  is  one  of  a  tribe,  he  is  always  the 
head  of  it — a  chief,  like  every  other,  with  a  tent  as  large 
as  the  sky,  as  large  as  the  horizon  which  his  own 
intellectual  stature  may  command. 

The  poet  is  conscious  of  his  status  as  the  "  maker" — 
the  maker  who  presumes  upon  the  common  advantage 
of  being  made  in  the  likeness  of  God,  and  gives  point  to 
the  likeness.     It  is  plainly  stated  by  F.  T.  in  "Carmen 

309 


Characteristics 

Genesis"  and  in  an  unpublished  note  written  in  support 
of  the  poem  : — 

Poet !  still,  still  thou  dost  rehearse, 
In  the  great  fiat  of  thy  Verse, 

Creation's  primal  plot ; 
And  what  thy  Maker  in  the  whole 
Worked,  little  maker,  in  thy  soul 

Thou  work'st,  and  men  know  not. 

Thine  intellect,  a  luminous  voice, 
Compulsive  moved  above  the  noise 

Of  thy  still  fluctuous  sense  ; 
And  Song,  a  water-child  like  Earth, 
Stands  with  feet  sea-washed,  a  wild  birth 

Amid  their  subsidence. 

And  in  prose  repetition  of  the  "  Poet  or  Maker  "  :  — 

"  In  the  beginning,  at  the  great  mandate  of  light,  the 
sea  suddenly  disglutted  the  earth  :  and  still  in  the 
microcosm  of  the  poetic,  the  making  mind,  Creation 
imitates  her  august  and  remembered  origins.  Still,  at 
the  luminous  compulsion  of  the  poet's  intellect,  from 
the  subsidence  of  his  fluctuant  senses  emerges  the 
express  and  founded  consistence  of  the  poem ;  con- 
fessing, by  manifold  tokens,  its  twofold  parentage, 
quickened  with  intellectual  light,  and  freshened  with  the 
humidities  of  feeling.  Of  generations  it  shall  endure  the 
spiritual  treading  and  to  generations  afford  its  fruits, 
a  terra  ftrma  which  may  scarce  wear  out  before  the 
prototypal  earth  itself.  This  is  the  function  of  the 
maker  since  God  first  imagined  :  though  poetry's  Book 
of  Genesis  is  yet  unwritten  which  might  be  written,  and 
its  Moses  is  desired  and  is  late.  An  art  not  unworthy 
the  Seraphic  Order  and  the  handling  of  Saints.  For 
the  poet  is  an  Elias,  that  when  he  comes  makes  all  things 
new.  It  is  a  converse,  alas,  and  lamentable  truth,  that 
the  false  poet  makes  even  new  things  old." 

310 


Pride   of  Poetry 


Of  the  Poet's  powers  of  Creation  or  Transfiguration 
Wordsworth  held  an  advanced  estimate  : — 

"  The  objects  of  the  poet's  thoughts  are  everywhere  ;  though 
the  eyes  and  senses  of  men  are,  it  is  true,  his  favourite  guides,  yet 
he  will  follow  wheresoever  he  can  find  an  atmosphere  of  sensation 
in  which  to  move  his  wings.  Poetry  is  the  first  and  last  of  all 
knowledge — it  is  immortal  as  the  heart  of  man.  If  the  labours 
of  the  men  of  science  should  ever  create  any  material  revolution, 
direct  or  indirect,  in  our  condition,  and  in  the  impressions  which 
we  habitually  receive,  the  poet  will  sleep  then  no  more  than  at 
present.  ...  If  the  time  should  ever  come  when  what  is  now 
called  science,  thus  familiarised  to  men,  shall  be  ready  to  put  on, 
as  it  were,  a  form  of  flesh  and  blood,  the  poet  will  lend  his  divine 
spirit  to  aid  the  transfiguration,  and  will  welcome  the  Being  thus 
produced,  as  a  dear  and  genuine  inmate  of  the  household  of  man." 

Pride  of  poetry,  when  Francis  was  forgetful  of  pride 
of  pain,  crops  up  in  a  hundred  places  ;  he  writes,  for 
instance,  of  Davidson's  "  The  Testament  of  an  Empire 
Builder  "  :— 

"  We  still  lament  that  here,  as  in  the  preceding  poems 
of  the  series,  there  is  far  too  much  metrical  dialectic, 
argument  in  verse,  which  is  a  thing  anti-poetic.  Poetry 
should  proclaim,  poetry  is  dogmatic;  when  it  stoops  to 
argue,  it  loses  its  august  privilege  and  becomes,  at  the 
best,  a  K.C.  in  cloth  of  gold." 

It  was  easily  perceived  he  was  not  candidly  and  fully 
himself  in  common  conversation.  He  was  as  much 
shut  within  his  repetitions  as  the  last  little  Chinese  box 
is  shut  within  a  series  of  Chinese  boxes.  Lift  all  the 
lids  and  you  find  emptiness  in  the  last.  Francis  insisted 
on  your  putting  all  the  little  boxes  back  again,  fitting 
the  right  lid  on  each,  for,  having  made  his  point,  he 
seldom  failed  to  prove  it  backwards.  Had  he  been  of 
another  age  and  race,  he  would  have  had  an  hermitage 
and  been  sought  by  those  who  wished  instruction — the 
instruction  that  is  not  seldom  done  in  silence.     But  who 

3ii 


Characteristics 

was  ready  to  listen  to  Francis's  silences  in  London  ? 
It  is  possible  that  if  a  child  had  sought  him  in  Ken- 
sington Gardens,  as  he  sat  oblivious  of  the  sparrows 
and  the  leaves  and  the  nursemaids,  and  had  asked  for 
knowledge,  revelation  might  have  followed.  We  know 
that  in  the  study  at  Lymington  Patmore  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  his  visitor's  prose  was  better  than  his 
poetry,  his  talk  better  than  his  prose.  The  windows  of 
that  Lymington  study  were  thrown  open  to  the  ample 
airs  of  Heaven ;  in  London  lodgings  the  east  winds 
made  the  noise  outside,  and  Thompson's  talk  about  the 
weather  filled  the  air  within.  The  Eastern  must  have 
communion,  even  the  communion  of  silence,  before  he 
lights  the  lamp  of  common  knowledge  ;  Plato  needed 
the  magnetism  of  listeners  and  learners.  Francis  needed 
none  but  the  absent,  perhaps  the  unborn,  reader.  The 
shares  he  issued  were  all  deferred  shares. 

And  every  stanza  was  an  act  of  faith  ;  every  stanza  a 
declaration  of  good-will.  It  is  optimism  that  compels 
the  poet  to  give  the  superfluity  of  his  inner  song  to  the 
world.  He  knows,  perhaps  against  all  common-sense, 
that  the  world  will  some  day  be  fit  for  it.  He  launches 
the  utmost  treasures  of  his  rare  estate  upon  the  nonde- 
script audience.  The  pessimist  either  ceases  writing 
(what  is  the  use  ?),  or,  if  he  writes,  cannot  always  be 
trusted  to  give  his  best  to  a  posterity  he  despises.  But 
Francis  gave  out  no  secrets  unless  he  had  wrapt  them 
in  poetry.  He  bore  them  secretly,  and  set  them  free 
only  when  he  had  decked  them  in  imagery.  He  was 
too  busy  making  clothes  against  their  birth  for  other 
companionship.  Also,  he  was  shy  of  his  own  inability 
to  be  communicative  and  shy  of  his  own  ardent  emotions 
towards  his  friends  : — 

"  I  know  how  it  must  tax  you,"  he  wrote  to  A.  M., 
"  to  endure  me  ;  for  you  are  a  friend,  a  mother  ;  while  I, 
over  and  above  these,  am  a  lover — spiritual  as  light,  and 

312 


A   Habit  of  Life 

unearthly  as  the  love  of  one's  angelic  dreams,  if  you  will 
— but  yet  a  lover  ;  and  even  a  seraph  enamoured  must 
be  a  trying  guardian  angel  to  have  to  do  with." 

And  again  : — 

"  I  am  unhappy  when  I  am  out  of  your  sight,  but 
you,  of  course,  can  have  no  such  feeling  in  reference 
to  me.  Now  my  sense  of  this  inspires  me  with  a 
continual  timidity  about  inflicting  my  society  on  you 
in  any  way,  unless  you  in  some  way  signify  a  desire 
for  it." 

He  inflicted  his  society  on  nobody.  What  he  did  inflict 
was  the  unaccomplished  proxy  of  himself.  Of  the 
manner  of  his  detachment  he  writes  : — 

"  I  do  not  know  but,  by  myself,  I  live  pretty  well  as 
much  in  the  past  and  future  as  in  the  present,  which 
seems  a  very  little  patch  between  the  two.  It  has  been 
more  or  less  a  habit  through  life,  and  during  the  last 
fifteen  years,  from  the  widened  vantage  of  survey  then 
gained,  it  has  come  to  dominate  my  mental  outlook. 
So  that  you  might  almost  say,  putting  it  hyperbolically, 
I  view  all  mundane  happenings  with  the  Fall  for  one 
terminus  and  the  Millennium  for  the  other.  If  I  want  to 
gauge  the  significance  of  a  contemporary  event  of  any 
mark,  I  dump  it  down  as  near  as  I  can,  in  its  proximate 
place  between  these  boundaries.  There  it  takes  up  very 
little  room." 

His  very  backwardness  was  benevolent ;  his  eye,  often 
pre-occupied,  was  never  indifferent ;  neither  careless  nor 
trivial,  it  never  sought  an  easy  exchange  of  confidences, 
nor  made  friends  by  suggestion  of  either  tact  or  in- 
telligence. He  was  a  man  who,  if  he  entered  not  into 
much  intercourse,  did  not  stand  aloof  through  contempt 
or  active  disinclination,  but  for  other  friendlier  reasons. 

313 


Characteristics 

He  was  a  man  to  be  observed,  not  to  observe ;  to  be 
seen,  not  to  see.  Neither  he  nor  his  room-mates  would, 
as  a  rule,  be  at  great  pains  to  come  together  ;  but,  even 
if  you  held  no  talk  with  him,  he  was  sufficiently  interest- 
ing or  endearing  to  take  your  eye. 

It  was  after  an  evening  divided  between  silence  and 
explanations  that,  wondering  how  well  he  covered  the 
fires  of  his  imagination,  one  went  to  the  door  to  help 
with  hat  and  coat.  Some  final  repetition,  unblushingly 
proclaimed  with  "As  I  have  said  before,"  would  still 
longer  delay  his  return  to  himself ;  but  once  he  had 
begun  to  go  down  the  flights  of  steps  in  Granville 
Place,  where  we  had  taken  a  flat,  he  would  find  himself 
face  to  face  again  with  the  realities  of  life  that  he  chose 
to  keep  private,  and  be  loudly  talking  to  himself  in  a 
style  more  meaningful  and  threatening  than  any  speech 
of  his  in  company.  Then  the  hall  door  would  be 
slammed  ;  and  still  in  the  silent  street,  past  puzzled 
policemen,  he  would  stride  away  in  fierce  agitation,  but 
less  solitary  than  when  he  sat  among  us.  But  a  certain 
sweetness  went  with  him  ;  he  did  not  need  to  talk  to 
stimulate  that  grateful  mood  of  charity  and  peace  that 
some  know  only  when  they  can  actually  do  works  of 
mercy  with  their  tongues  and  eyes.  His  gentle  eye 
proved  that  not  all  his  silent  thoughts  were  troubled  ;  and 
often  his  gaze  would  climb  to  some  invisible  and  fair 
peak  of  contemplation,  resting  there  content  in  silence. 
Sometimes  he  was  obviously  happy  in  small-talk  and 
his  companionships,  but  that  was  when  commonplaces 
were  not  used  solely  as  a  shelter  from  the  inconveni- 
ence of  thoughts  not  commonplace.  Even  his  half- 
penny paper,  as  he  read  it  over  in  his  tea-shop,  was  a 
root  of  happiness.  He  was  fair  game  for  the  journalist 
of  Lower  Grub  Street.  Here  is  a  random  list  of  the 
things  he  cut  from  the  Daily  Mail :  "  Maria  Blume's 
Will,"  "  Insurance  of  Domestic  Servants,"  "  Help  for 
the  Householder,"  "  Mikado  Airs  on  Japanese  Warship 

3H 


Cuttings 

—Amusing  Scenes,"  "Freaks  of  Weather:  Startling 
Changes  of  Temperature,"  "The  Milk  Peril,  What 
hinders  Reform,"  and  "  Joy,"  a  poem  by  Mr.  Sturge 
Moore — with  a  little  more  margin  to  it,  and  straighter 
scissors-work. 


315 


CHAPTER   XVI:    THE    CLOSING   YEARS 

As  F.T.  grew  busier  with  journalism,  and  was  helped  to 
bread  by  it,  he  grew  peevish  with  his  prose,  as  other 
men  do  with  a  servant  : — 

"  Prose  is  clay  ;  poetry  the  white,  molten  metal.  It  is 
plastic,  not  merely  to  gross  touch,  but  to  the  lightest 
breath,  a  wish,  a  half-talent,  an  unconscious  feather- 
passage  of  emotional  suggestion.  The  most  instantan- 
eously perfect  of  all  media  for  expression.  Instant  and 
easy  as  the  snap  of  a  camera,  perfect  as  star  in  pool  to 
star  above,  natural  as  breathing  of  sweet  air,  or  drinking 
of  rain-fresh  odours  ;  where  prose  asks  a  certain  effort 
and  conscious  shaping.  But  prose  can  be  put  in  shafts 
(to  its  slow  spoiling) ;  verse,  alack !  hears  no  man's 
bidding,  but  serves  when  it  lists, — even  when  it  consents 
to  lay  aside  its  wings." 

"  Poetry  simple  or  synthetic  ;  prose  analytic." 

"It  might  almost  be  erected  into  a  rule  that  a  great 
poet  is,  if  he  pleases,  also  a  master  of  prose,"  he  writes 
in  one  of  several  studies  of  "The  Prose  of  Poets" — 
including  Sir  Philip  Sidney's,  Shakespeare's,  Ben  Jon- 
son's,  and  Goldsmith's,  first  published  in  the  Academy. 

At  times  the  every-day  difficulties  of  journalism  seemed 
insurmountable.  Then  would  he  write  desperately  to 
W.  M.  of  the  necessity  for  cowardice  on  his  part  and  a 
return  to  a  mode  of  life  that  had  no  responsibilities  : — 

"  Things  have  become  impossible.  B did  not  out- 
right refuse  me  an  advance  on  my  poem,  but  told  me  to 

316 


J  he  .1  lie  (     II  d.ik 
IQ05 


Money  Matters 

call  again  and  'talk  it  over.'  .  .  .  The  only  thing  is  for 
me  to  relieve  you  of  my  burthen — at  any  rate  for  the 
present — and  go  back  whence  I  came.  There  will  be  no 
danger  in  my  present  time  of  life  and  outworn  strength 
that  I  should  share  poor  Coventry's  complaint  (that  of 
outliving  his  ambition  to  live).  .  .  .  For  the  reverse  of 
the  medal,  you  have  Ghosh  who  has  just  been  promised 
.£220  odd  for  a  series  of  tales. 

"...  For  the  present,  at  any  rate,  good-bye,  you 
dearest  ones.     If  for  longer — 

Why,  then,  this  parting  was  well  made. 

— Yours  ever  and  whatever  comes, 

Francis  Thompson." 

During  the  years  when  such  despairs  were  common 
W.  M.'s  favours  were  forced  upon  a  spasmodically 
reluctant  poet,  whose  earnings  seemed  never  at  best  to 
leave  him  a  margin  for  incidental  expenses  : — 

"To  have  to  talk  of  money-matters  to  you  is  itself 
a  misery,  a  sordidness.  How  much  worse  in  its 
way  all  this  must  press  on  you  is  comprehensible  to 
anyone.  We  are  no  longer  as  we  were  ten  years  ago. 
You  have  grown-up  children  to  launch  in  life.  .  .  ." 

For  W.  M.  there  was  never  a  doubt  of  the  honour 
and  pleasure  of  his  position.  If  Francis's  rent  fell 
sometimes  in  arrears,  it  was  not  because  there  was  any 
falling-away  in  willingness,  but  because  it  had  taken  its 
place  among  the  many  liabilities  of  the  master  of  a  large 
household,  and  had  to  wait  among  them  for  its  turn  to 
be  met. 

After  a  desperate  letter  foretelling  the  end,  a  little 
conversation  with  my  father  would  correct  his  despair, 
and   he    could    return   to    his   landlady   with    the   most 

3*7 


The  Closing  Years 

obvious    remedy,   or    some    suggestion    equally    effica- 
cious : — 

"  You  are  right.  Mrs.  Maries  has  given  way,  on  the 
understanding  that  you  will  make  some  arrangement 
with  her  before  the  end  of  the  month." 

Again,  to  W.  M.  : — 

"...  As  for  poetry,  I  am  despondent  when  I  am 
without  a  poetical  fit,  yet  when  I  have  one  I  am  miser- 
able on  account  of  my  prose.  I  came  lately  across  a 
letter  of  Keats'  (penned  in  the  pras-Endymion  days), 
which  might  almost  word  for  word  be  written  by  myself 
about  myself.  It  expresses  exactly  one  of  the  things 
which  trouble  me,  and  make  me  sometimes  despair  of 
my  career.  'I  find'  (he  says)  'I  find  I  cannot  do 
without  poetry — without  eternal  poetry  ;  half  the  day 
will  not  do — the  whole  of  it.  I  began  with  a  little,  but 
habit  has  made  me  a  leviathan.  I  had  become  all  in  a 
tremble  from  not  having  written  anything  of  late  :  the 
sonnet  over-leaf  did  me  good  ;  I  slept  the  better  last 
night  for  it :  this  morning,  however,  I  am  nearly  as  bad 
again.'  I,  too,  have  been  'all  in  a  tremble'  because  I 
had  written  nothing  of  late.  I  am  constantly  expecting 
to  wake  up  some  morning  and  find  that  my  Damon  has 
abandoned  me.  I  hardly  think  I  could  be  very  vain  of 
my  literary  gift ;  for  I  so  keenly  feel  that  it  is  beyond 
my  power  to  command,  and  may  at  any  moment  be 
taken  from  me." 

This  nervousness   for  his  muse,   like    to   Rossetti's  for 
his  sight,  came  upon  him  more  hardly  in  later  years. 

Misrepresentation — it  is  easy  to  trace  its  origin — was 
busy  before  his  death.  The  word  went  round  that  the 
streets  had  put  a  worse  slur  than  hunger,  nakedness, 
and  loneliness  upon  him.  In  1906  a  pamphlet  reached 
him  from  the  University  Press,  Notre  Dame,  Indiana, 

318 


Misrepresentation 

in  which  he  read  that  he  "had  been  raised  out  of 
the  depths": 

"  No  optimism  of  intent  can  overlook  the  fact  of  his  having 
fallen,  and  no  euphemism  of  expression  need  endeavour  to  cloak 
it.  Down  those  few  terrible  years  he  let  himself  go  with  the 
winds  of  fancy,  and  threw  himself  on  the  swelling  wave  of  every 
passion,  desiring  only  to  live  to  the  full  with  a  purpose  of  mind 
apparently  like  that  of  his  contemporary,  Oscar  Wilde,  but  in 
circumstances  now  vastly  different  from  those  the  brilliant  young 
Oxford  dandy  knew.  He  said,  '  I  will  eat  of  all  the  fruits  in  the 
Garden  of  Life,'  and  in  the  very  satisfaction  of  his  desire  found 
its  insatiableness." 

With  gossip  turning  the  pages,  that  reader  found  the 
proof  of  Thompson's  wrong-doing  in  "The  Hound 
of  Heaven." 

I  fled  Him  down  the  nights  and  down  the  days, 

could  only  mean  that  the  runaway  was  a  criminal,  and 
the  Almighty  the  policeman  who  hurries  when  he  is 
sure  of  a  crime.  "  The  Hound  of  Heaven,"  a  study  in 
the  profound  science  of  renunciation,  was  said  to  be 
the  work  of  a  man  who  had  "  thrown  himself  on  the 
swelling  wave  of  every  passion."  It  mattered  nothing 
that  in  the  poem  we  read  only  that  the  poet  had  "  clung 
to  the  whistling  mane  of  every  wind,"  had  turned  to 
children  "very  wistfully,"  had  "troubled  the  gold  gate- 
way of  the  stars."  There  is  really  nothing  in  it  to 
support  the  blacker  theory.  A  better  way  to  understand 
the  poetry  and  know  the  poet  is  to  believe  the  poet 
and  the  poetry.  This  pamphleteer  and  the  writer  of  the 
obituary  notice  in  the  Times  were  strangers,  their  know- 
ledge was  based  on  hearsay.  In  face  of  such  misunder- 
standing, at  the  time  of  his  death  it  was  hardly  sur- 
prising to  read  in  the  Mercure  de  France  that  "  he  went 
mad,  and  death  happily  put  an  end  to  his  miseries." 

319 


The  Closing  Years 

A  Professor  of  Romance  Languages  in  Columbia  Uni- 
versity may  be  right  in  thinking  that  Thompson  does 
not  ever  sink  so  low  as  Verlaine,  nor  ever  rise  quite 
so  high,  and  that  greater  poets  than  Thompson,  from 
Collins  to  Coleridge,  have  often  failed  in  the  ode-forms, 
but  he  is  inaccurate  when  he  says  that,  "  like  Verlaine, 
he  is  the  poet  of  sin." 

Since  there  was  so  little  to  go  upon,  it  is  hardly  sur- 
prising that  the  alien  onlooker's  conception  of  Francis 
Thompson  was  a  misconception.     His  poor  living,  his 
unknown  lodging,  his  fugitive  seclusion  encouraged  the 
legend  that  he  was  still  an   outcast.     Since  this  alien 
had  never  heard  him  laugh,  and  to  the  ear's  imagina- 
tion   it    is    easier     to    frame    a    cry,    the    subject    of 
the  ready-made  legend  never  even  smiled  ;  there  were 
no  fioretti  connected   with   his    name,    and   the   weeds 
were  taken  for  granted.     The  heavy  remorsefulness  of  his 
muse  seemed,  to  such  as  are  unfamiliar  with  the  confiteor 
of   the   saints,   to    mark   a    more   real   repentance,   and 
therefore  real  misconduct,  than  does  the  ordinary,  facile 
peccavi  of  modern  poetry-books.     We  notice  that  at  his 
death    the    writers   of   the   obituary   notices   who    were 
ready  with  suggestions  of  evil  days  were  equally  ready 
with  the  usual  liberal  condonation.     "No  such  condo- 
nation was  called  for — though  by  some  it  was  offered — 
in  the  case  of  Francis  Thompson,"  wrote  A.  M.  in  the 
Dublin  Review,  January  1908.     "  For,  during  many  years 
of  friendship,  and  almost   daily  companionship,  it  was 
evident  to  solicitous  eyes  that  he  was  one  of  the  most 
innocent  of  men." 

To  The  Nation,  November  23,  1907,  W.  M.  wrote  his 
protest : — 

"I  see  in  the  Times  a  paragraph  about  Francis  Thompson, 
against  which  I  will  ask  you  to  let  me  make  appeal.  It  comes 
from  '  A  Correspondent,'  who  '  writes  to  us  ' ;  and  I  am  just  such 
another,  writing  to  you.     But  I  knew  Thompson,  and  no  pen  but 

320 


Misrepresentation 


an  alien's  could  have  written  this  to  Printing  House  Square  : 
'  There  are  occasions  on  which  the  conventional  expression  of 
regret  becomes  a  mockery,  and  this  is  one  of  them.  What  the 
world  must  regret  is  not  the  release  of  Mr.  Thompson,  but  the  fact 
that  the  cravings  of  the  body  from  which  he  is  released  should 
have  had  power  to  ruin  one  of  the  most  remarkable  and  original 
of  the  poetic  geniuses  of  our  time.'  I  know  what  the  writer  in- 
sinuates. I  know,  too,  that  he  has  overshot  his  mark.  But  the 
public  will  only  too  greedily  infer  from  his  words  that  Thompson 
was  a  degraded  man — he  who  carried  dignity  amid  all  vicissitude  ; 
that  he  was  a  debauchee — he  who  lived,  as  he  sang,  the  votary 
of  Fair  Love.  Nor  need  I  adopt  in  his  regard  the  fine  passage  in 
which  Mr.  Birrell  defends  Charles  Lamb's  '  drinking.'  For  Mr. 
Francis  Thompson  did  not  '  drink.' 

"  The  '  genius  '  of  Francis  Thompson  was  not  '  ruined,'  or  we 
should  not  have  the  evidence  of  it  on  every  page  of  three  volumes, 
presenting  together  a  body  of  best  poetry  equal  in  size  to  that  of 
most  of  our  poets.  But  it  is  true  that  Thompson's  health  was 
wretched  from  first  to  last.  It  is  true  also  that  he  doctored  him- 
self disastrously  with  laudanum  from  almost  the  early  days  of 
his  medical  studentship  in  Manchester.  When  he  came  to  the 
streets  of  London,  the  drug  delivered  him  in  a  manner  from  their 
horrors,  and,  besides,  was,  I  think,  some  palliation  of  the  disease 
of  which  he  finally  died — consumption.  .  .  . 

"  Again,  Thompson  was  an  uncertain  worker ;  but  his  friendly 
editors  did  not  hustle  him.  And  they  could  always  count  on  him 
to  keep  time  with  even  a  '  commissioned  '  poem.  The  Odes  on  the 
Nineteenth  Century  and  on  the  Victorian  Jubilee  did  not  get  late 
to  the  editor  of  the  Daily  Chronicle  ;  and  even  if  they  had  been 
late,  nobody  else  could  have  sent  them  so  quickly,  for  nobody  else 
could  have  sent  them  at  all.  Every  week,  in  the  Academy,  under 
Mr.  Lewis  Hind,  Thompson's  articles  made  fine  reading — his  essay 
on  Emerson  marking  the  high-water  mark  of  that  manner  of 
criticism  ;  and  I  am  certain  that  the  editor  of  the  Athenceum, 
for  whom  he  was  in  harness  almost  until  the  last  week  of  his  life, 
and  who  treated  him  with  a  consideration  never  to  be  forgotten 
by  his  friends,  is  in  sorrow  that  Thompson  is  dead. 

"  Such,  in  brief,  was  my  friend  : — a  moth  of  a  man,  who  has 
taken  his  unreturning  flitting  !  No  pen — least  of  all,  mine — can 
do  justice  to  him  :  to  his  rectitude,  to  his  gentleness,  to  his  genius. 
....  If  he  had  great  misfortunes,  he  bore  them  greatly ;  they 
were  great  because  everything  about  him  was  great.     It  is  my 

321  X 


The  Closing  Years 


consolation  now,  amid  tears  for  Thompson  from  eyes  that  never 
thought  to  shed  so  many  again,  to  know  that  he  knew  and 
accepted  his  fate  and  mission,  and  that  he  willingly  '  learned 
in  suffering  what  he  taught  in  song.'  But  I  have  spoken  too 
much.  I  did  not  mean  to  do  more  than  make  the  writer  in 
the  Times  aware  that  somebody  loves  his  life  less  because  Thomp- 
son is  dead." 

The  argument  of  the  poet's  sanctity  is  in  his  poems  ; 
and  it  were  tiresome  to  take  the  oath  in  the  discredited 
witness-box  of  biography  in  denial  of  any  particular 
accusation.  But  the  circumstances  that  made  imputa- 
tion of  evil  likely  and  credible  form  part  of  the  literary 
history  of  the  period.  The  Mid-Victorian  respectability 
which  Patmore  lifted  to  Parnassus  in  the  "Angel  in  the 
House,"  and  which  lifted  Tennyson  to  the  Peerage,  had 
given  way  to  reaction.  Swinburne's  showy  metres  had 
persuaded  the  young  that  bad  morality  could  be  good 
art.  Instead  of  Burns's  heavy  drinking  and  light  loves, 
Verlaine  and  absinthe  served  for  a  new  argument  to 
confound  the  squeamish.  Verlaine  made  a  fashion,  and 
his  tragedy  came  easily,  even  to  minor  poets,  and  was 
not  altogether  impious.  The  young  men  anxious  to  fall 
as  he  fell  were  anxious  also  to  share  in  the  depths  of 
his  contrition.  The  duet  about  commission  of  sin  and 
contrition  for  sin  had  great  vogue,  and  accounts  for 
a  deal  of  the  poetry  of  self-accusation,  made,  not 
seldom,  in  regard  to  imaginary  offences.  Contrition 
was,  after  all,  the  main  force  at  work,  and,  in  the 
naked,  truthful,  and  intense  moments  of  death,  this  was 
the  ruling  passion.  The  reaction  had,  after  all,  been 
merely  a  reaction,  and  not  a  little  genius  had  been 
spilled  in  barren  soil.  The  Church  and  the  Sacraments 
were  at  the  service  of  men  who  had  fondly  believed  that 
their  chief  strength  was  in  rebellion,  and  that  they  had 
strayed  into  ways  of  loss  and  salvation  peculiar  to  them- 
selves, but  who  ended  by  being  sorry. 

Religion    seems   always   to  be   setting    its   beneficent 

322 


A  Certain  Group 

ambush  for  those  who  thought  themselves  most  se- 
curely on  another  road ;  but  in  the  case  of  the  victims 
of  abnormal  and  distressful  phases  of  experience  there 
was  something  more  than  the  splendid  accident  of  re- 
conciliation and  forgiveness.  One  after  another  of 
the  leaders  of  aesthetic  disaffection  and  disease  con- 
fessed to  an  almost  involuntary  inclination  to  seek  the 
arms  of  the  Church.  The  devil,  prowling  like  a  lion, 
might  leap  upon  them,  "but  the  Lamb,  He  leapeth 
too."  Christ's  actual  presence,  His  miracles,  His  hand, 
were  for  the  sick,  the  afflicted,  the  wrongdoer :  His 
inspiration  to-day  most  often  rests  upon  those  intel- 
lectual sinners  who  have  seemed  in  their  misfortune  to 
be  puffing  out  the  light  of  the  world.  And  this  was  not 
only  a  death-bed  reconciliation.  What  English  artist  for 
fifty  years  has  made  a  "  Madonna  and  Child  ?  "  Aubrey 
Beardsley  made  one.  What  poet  had  sung  of  the  last 
sacraments  ?  Ernest  Dowson's  most  beautiful  verses  are 
on  the  Extreme  Unction.  Lionel  Johnson,  whom  Thomp- 
son knew,  had  not  been  a  rebel,  and  he  did  not  seek  a 
death-bed  reprieve.  Nevertheless  his  name  connects  one 
form  of  failure  with  the  literary  life  of  his  day  and  with  an 
ardent  adherence  to  Religion.  Another  type  of  a  school 
that  had  set  out  to  use  bad  language  but  could  say  nothing 
finally  but  its  prayers,  is  he  who  then  sang  in  company 
with  Baudelaire,  but  whose  poet,  now  he  has  become 
a  priest,  is  Jacopone  da  Todi.  So,  too,  with  Simeon 
Solomon,  as  his  reputation  and  his  clothes  became  more 
ragged,  who,  as  he  grew  "famous  for  his  falls"  but 
otherwise  obscure,  found  a  co-ordinating  central  in- 
spiration for  his  work,  and  found  it  before  the  altars  of 
the  Carmelite  Church  in  Kensington.  Francis  may 
well  have  jostled  elbows  with  him  there,  or  on  the  pave- 
ment. 

The  copper-plated  Death  of  the  sixteenth  century 
is  a  caution  no  more  gruesome  or  extreme  than  the 
picture  of  these  poets  and  painters  in  their  pains.     Two 

323 


The  Closing  Years 

or  three  to  a  lunatic  asylum,  one  to  death  that  smelt  of 
suicide,  and  three  at  least  to  death  hastened  by  drink — 
that  is  the  hasty  record  of  a  certain  group.  Francis 
never  met  Wilde,  the  wit  who  stumbled  and  gasped  the 
dull  man's  daily  words  of  repentance,  even  before 
his  audience  was  well  aware  of  his  jest ;  nor  Beardsley 
the  artist  who  found  death's  quill  at  his  heart  before  he 
had  time  to  destroy  the  drawings,  which,  in  his  agony, 
he  learnt  some  devil  rather  than  himself  had  made. 
To  the  hospitals,  asylums,  and  prisons  of  London  and 
Paris,  to  the  Sanatorium  of  the  Pacific  or  the  Medi- 
terranean, to  the  slums,  and  to  starvation,  Literature 
contributed  numbers  out  of  all  proportion. 

Francis  knew  none  of  them ;  but  he  had  made  a 
name  in  the  'nineties,  had  lived  in  the  streets  (the  last 
resort  of  several  of  them),  had  died  a  Catholic  (most 
damning  evidence  !),  had  written  passionately  (the  divinity 
of  his  passion  was  not  noted) :  there  was  circumstantial 
evidence  enough.  He  was  exalted  :  how  should  the 
obituary  writers  know  the  exaltation  was  not  feverish  ? 
His  poetry  he  laid  upon  altar-steps  ;  was  it  for  them 
to  guess  he  had  chased  no  satyrs  from  his  cathedral 
before  he  set  himself  to  pray?  His  view  of  Dowson 
is  characteristic : 

"...  A  frail  and  (in  an  artistic  sense)  faint  minor 
poet.  .  .  .  The  major  poet  moulds,  rather  than  is 
moulded  by,  his  environment.  And  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  the  most  accomplished  morbidity  can  survive 
the  supreme  test  of  Time.  In  the  long  run  Sanity  en- 
dures ;  the  finest  art  goes  under  if  it  be  perverse  and 
perverted  art,  though  for  a  time  it  may  create  life  under 
the  ribs  of  death." 

Like  the  legend  that  seeks  to  give  an  evil  or  a  sad 
account  of  men,  is  the  easier  legend  of  their  laziness. 
All  who  have  known  joy  and  written  vastly  have  been 
accused  of  inertia  and  despondency. 

324 


Idleness  and   Industry 

It  is  true  that  Francis  was  apprenticed  to  Idleness  of 
wits,  as  well  as  Industry  ;  but,  finding  both  hard  masters, 
and  Idleness  (of  the  common  sort)  the  harder,  he  much 
sought  to  avoid  it.  As  for  his  work  (save  in  poetry)  he 
knew  few  moments  at  which  he  could  with  Coleridge 
declare  a  happiness  in  difficulties,  "feeling  in  resistance 
nothing  but  a  joy  and  a  stimulus."  With  Coleridge's 
other  mood  ("  drowsy,  self-distrusting,  prone  to  rest, 
loathing  his  own  self-promises,  withering  his  own  hopes 
— his  hopes,  the  vitality,  the  cohesion  of  his  being")  he 
was  acquainted.  But  not  long ;  the  meaning  of  his 
inactivity  would  burst  on  him,  until  the  thought  of  it  was 
labour.     But  with  Wordsworth  he  says  : — 

"...  for  many  clays  my  brain  worked  with  a  dim  and 
undetermined  sense  of  unknown  modes  of  being," 

and  for  his  reassurance  he  had  at  hand  the  same  poet's 

'Tis  my  faith  that  there  are  powers 

Which  of  themselves  our  minds  impress  ; 

That  we  may  feed  this  mind  of  ours 
In  a  wise  passiveness. 

Francis  construed  his  own  defence  into  a  hundred 
aphorisms.     These  two  are  signed  with  his  initials  :  — 

"  Where  I  find  nothing  done  by  me,  much  may  have 
been  done  in  me,"  and 

"  For  the  things  to-day  done  in  you,  will  be  done  by 
you  to-morrow  many  things." 

Lying  abed,  he  was  acutely  aware  of  his  duty  to  get 
up.  It  was  a  conscious  and  laborious  laziness,  akin  to 
Dr.  Johnson's,  whose  great  bulk  was  shaken  with  almost 
daily  repentance  for  its  sloth.  The  dictionary  makes  our 
shelves  creak  in  protest  at  the  notion  held  by  Johnson 
himself  and  his  contemporaries  that  he  was  a  lazy  man  ; 
and  the  pile  of  Thompson's  papers,  his  letters,  and  the 
following  placard   he  pinned    upon   his   bedroom   wall 

3^5 


The  Closing  Years 

speak  of  his  large  industries  and  his  girding  at  the 
spectre  sloth  : — 

At  the  Last  Trump  thou  wilt  rise  Betimes  ! 

Up  ;  for  when  thou  wouldst  not,  thou  wilt  shortly  sleep  long. 

The  worm  is  even  now  weaving  thy  body  its  night-shift. 

Love  slept  not  a-saving  thee.     Love  calls  thee, 

Rise,  and  seek  Him  early.     Ask,  and  receive. 

I  leave  imprinted  other  more  piteous  solicitations  for 
what,  virtually,  though  he  did  not  guess  it,  was  the  energy 
and  health  he  could  not  possess.  Upon  another  sheet 
more  worldly  persuasions  were  set  to  urge  his  waking 
eye.  Of  a  printer's  request  for  copy  on  an  earlier  day 
than  that  usually  covenanted  he  writes  : — 

"  Remember  the  new  Athenautn  dodge  testifies  against 
you." 

It  was  he  who  found  time  to  be  pleased  with  Brearley's 
bowling  or  merry  with  the  anticipation  of  the  morrow; 
he,  sitting  in  grey  lodgings,  who  crowded  into  the  chilly 
ten  minutes  before  3  a.m.  the  writing  of  a  long  letter  to 
be  posted,  after  anxieties  with  address  and  gum  of  which 
we  know  nothing,  and  a  stumbling  journey  down  dark 
stairs,  in  a  pillar  box  still  black  in  threatening  dawn. 
There  are  few  such  journeys  of  my  own  I  can  count 
to  my  credit,  and  few  words  I  can  remember,  written 
or  spoken,  to  set  against  his  thronging  puns  and  his 
constant  sequence  of  "Yours  ever."  At  any  rate  he 
was  outdone  at  every  turn — in  kindness,  attentions, 
sallies,  patience  and  wit— by  one  among  his  friends, 
my  father,  who  had  to  crowd  his  generosity  to  the 
poet  between  stretches  of  persistent  overwork,  the  real 
thronging  anxieties  that  were  at  least  as  pressing  as 
Francis's  imaginary  ones.  In  reading  a  series  of  letters 
Francis  wrote  to  me  in  the  last  years,  I  am  sorry  to 
think  how  slovenly  must  have  been  my  response  to 
his  tenacious  jesting.     And  it  was  he  who  troubled  to 

326 


His  Looks 

make  his  notes  kind  and  acceptable,  neat  and  long. 
One  marvels,  among  the  mass  of  his  journalism  and 
letters,  at  the  estimate  of  him  that  passed  undisputed 
during  his  life,  as  a  man  who  misspent  his  powers  and 
wasted  his  minutes  as  he  wasted  his  matches.  If  he  was 
unfortunate,  he  was  also  merry.  Without  excuse  his 
biographer  confesses  to  the  moodiness,  the  silence,  the 
disorderliness  that  is  imputed  to  the  poet.  The  consola- 
tion for  all  my  family  is  the  thought  of  my  father's 
incessant  care  for  and  good  humour  towards  him. 

Of  the  hours  he  kept  there  are  many  legends,  all  made 
according  to  Greenwich  time.  But  it  is  not  expected  of 
the  lamp-lighter,  or  the  contract-winder  of  office  clocks, 
or  the  milkman,  that  he  should  write  Thompson's  poetry, 
or  even  read  it,  and  yet  we  started  with  a  wholly 
illogical  desire  of  constraining  Francis,  if  not  to  fulfil 
their  duties,  at  least  to  be  a  party  to  their  punctuality. 

Mr.  Orpen  desired  to  paint  him  ;  sittings  were  even 
appointed  ;  but  not  till  Mr.  Neville  Lytton  found  him 
under  the  same  roof,  at  Newbuildings,  was  his  elusive 
likeness  caught  by  an  artist. 

To  look  at,  as  it  happens,  he  was  something  between 
a  lamp-lighter  and  a  man  of  letters,  but  nearer  the  lamp- 
lighter ;  unless,  seeing  him  stand  beneath  a  street  gas-jet 
to  write  an  overdue  article,  one  noticed  he  carried  a 
pencil  instead  of  a  pole.  Thus  were  the  flares  of 
Brown's  bookstalls  in  Bishop's  Road  used  by  him.  On 
and  on  would  he  write  until  the  last  shutter  was  closed 
and  the  gas  turned  down.  Then  dashing  off  the  final 
sentence,  he  would  rush  into  the  shop  to  sell  his  book, 
and  to  the  pillar-box  with  his  article. 

If  he  is  to  be  sought  for  among  the  old  masters,  it  is 
to  El  Greco  that  one  would  go.  He  had  the  narrow 
head  and  ardent  eye  that  served  that  painter  for  Saint, 
Beggar,  and  Courtier.  None  other  recalls  his  presence 
to  me,  or  creates  an  atmosphere  in  which  he  could  have 
lived.     Rembrandt's  was  too  rich  and  still,  Tintoretto's 

327 


The  Closing  Years 

too  invigorating.  Titian  recognised  no  such  pallor, 
Giorgione  no  such  slightness,  and  Veronese  no  such 
shabbiness.  For  the  Florentines,  they  were  better  built ; 
their  poets'  countenances  were  more  established  and 
secure,  and  their  excellent  young  men  were  less  nervous 
and  restless  than  he. 

He  alludes  in  a  letter  to  a  belief  (principally,  I  believe, 
his  own)  that  he  resembled  two  Personages  : — 

"  Dear  Ev., — Character  counts,  even  in  cricket.  This 
morning  I  was  looking  at  a  Daily  Mail  photo,  of  the 
South  African  team  for  the  coming  cricket  season. 
One  of  the  faces  instantly  caught  my  eye.  '  Well ! '  said 
I,  'if  character  count  for  anything  in  cricket,  this  should 
be  the  bowler  they  say  has  the  Bosanquet  style.'  .  .  . 
Since  Hall  Caine  is  no  Shakespeare,  Plonplon  no  soldier, 
and  neither  the  Tsar  nor  the  Prince  of  Wales  \George  V] 
are  Thompsonian  poets,  great  was  my  surprise  when  I 
found  the  fellow  was  the  Bosanquet  bowler." 

Had  he  compared  his  own  youthful  photographs  with 
those  of  the  present  Prince  of  Wales  he  might  perhaps 
have  been  confirmed  in  one  of  his  impressions. 

The  only  faces  he  much  pondered  were  the  poets'. 
Round  the  walls  of  his  room  he  pinned  the  Academy 
supplements,  full-page  reproductions  from  the  National 
Portrait  Gallery ;  and  with  these  was  a  reproduction 
given  him  by  Coventry  Patmore  of  Sargent's  drawing  of 
A.  M.  The  supplements  he  liked  all  the  better  because 
they  illustrated  a  favourite  theory  of  facial  angles.  On 
foreheads  he  set  no  value  ;  but  insisted  that  genius  was 
most  often  indicated  by  a  protruding  upper  jaw.  This 
did  not  mean  for  him  that  thick  lips  had  significance, 
but  where  the  bony  structure  from  the  base  of  the 
nose  to  the  upper  teeth  was  thrust  forward,  as,  notably, 
in  Charlotte  Bronte  and  Coventry  Patmore,  he  found 
the  character  that  interested  him. 

328 


The  Closir  ars 


■ 


!    no   such 
onese   no  s 
>jre  better  bi 
iblished   and 

ore  less  nervous 


T?      C 


One  o 


ler  they  sav  has 


ily,  I  believe, 


: — 

This 

i 

of 

the 

on. 

Ion  n 

. 

Tul  photr 
of  Wales  h  ht  perhaps 

is  impressions. 
mdered  were  the  pc: 
■ 
ge  reprodu,.  im  the  nal 

ion 

use 

On 

lius  was 

v.     This 

□  that  iiificance, 

he   base    of 
ard,  as.  bly, 


Tt"~CU 


r 


Jlu 


•/ici.)  .  /hamfkkyn 

'JJi-iiiin    hii  lli~   /Ken..    lr(V//.'    Jnltiii 


igoj 


His  Letters 

Here  is  another  letter,  written  in  a  bad  light  but 
copious  good  spirits,  before  a  visit  to  "the  Serendi- 
pity Shop  "  :— 

"  Dear  Ev., — This  to  remind  you  I  shall  be  at  the  shop, 
whereof  the  name  is  mystery  which  all  men  seek  to  look 
into,  and  in  the  mouth  of  the  young  man  Aloysius 
doubtful  is  the  explanation — -yea,  shuffleth  like  one 
that  halteth  by  reason  of  the  gout ;  in  the  forehead  and 
forehand  of  the  bland  and  infant  day,  yet  swaddled  in  the 
sable  bands  of  the  first  hour  and  the  pre-diluculnm.  For 
the  Wodensday,  a  kitten  with  its  eyes  still  sealed,  is  laid 
in  the  smoky  basket  of  night,  awaiting  the  first  homoeo- 
pathic doses  of  the  morn's  tinctured  euphrasy  (even 
as  euphrasia  once  cured  an  inflammation  of  my  dim 
lid)." 

Mr.  Andrew  Lang  has  complained  of  de  Quincey's 
digressions  ;  a  further  sample  of  F.  T.'s  habitual  guilti- 
ness may  be  taken  from  one  of  the  slightest  of  his 
notes  : — 

{'  Dear  Ev., — I  told  your  father  I  should  come  to- 
morrow, but  I  send  you  a  line  to  mak  siccar — as  the  lover 
of  artistic  completion  said  who  revised  Bruce's  murder 
of  Red  Comyn.  It  is  interesting  to  see  the  tentative 
beginnings  of  the  James  school  in  Bruce,  already 
at  variance  with  the  orthodox  methods  upheld  by  his 
critical  collaborator.  The  critic  in  question  considered 
that  Bruce  had  left  off  too  soon.  But  to  Bruce's  taste 
evidently  there  was  a  suggestion  in  the  hinted  tragedy 
of  '  I  doubt  I  have  killed  Red  Comyn  '  more  truly  effec- 
tive than  the  obvious  ending  substituted  by  his  confrere. 
History,  by  the  way,  has  curiously  failed  to  grasp  the 
inner  significance  of  this  affair. 

"  I  am  quite  run  down  to-night."  .... 

"  I    had    never    your   lightness  of    heart,"    he    writes, 

329 


The  Closing  Years 

forcing  me  to  wonder  what  he  thought  of  one  for  making 
such  poor  use,  in  his  behalf,  of  the  imputed  charac- 
teristic ;  "  nor  was  I  ever  without  sad  overshadowings 
of  the  hurrying  calamity.  .  .  .  '  The  day  cometh,  also 
the  night' ;  but  I  was  born  in  the  shadow  of  the  winter 
solstice,  when  the  nights  are  long.  I  belong  by  nativity 
to  the  season  of  'heavy  Saturn.'  Was  it  also,  I  some- 
times think,  under  Sagittarius  ?  I  am  not  astronomer 
enough  to  know  how  far  the  precession  of  the  equinoxes 
had  advanced  in  '58  or  '59.  Were  it  so  it  would  be 
curious,  for  Sagittarius,  the  archer,  is  the  Word.  He  is 
also  Cheiron,  the  Centaur,  instructor  of  Achilles.  The 
horse  is  intellect  or  understanding  (Pegasus  =  winged  in- 
tellect). He  is  the  slayer  of  Taurus  the  Bull  (natural 
truth  and  natural  or  terrestrial  power  and  generation, 
the  fire  of  unspiritualised  sense),  which  sinks  as  he  rises 
above  the  horizon.  Ephraim,  a  type  or  symbol  of  the 
Word  (as  Judah  of  the  Fathers  and  the  Priesthood),  was 
an  archer,  or  symbolised  as  such.  (See  Jacob's  dying 
and  prophetic  blessing  of  his  sons,  wherein  each  has  a 
symbol  proper  to  his  character  and  that  of  his  tribe, 
indicating  his  place  as  a  type  in  the  Old  Church,  and  in 
the  foreshadowing  of  the  New.)  But  this  is  very  idle 
chatter,  and  I  don't  know  how  I  fell  upon  it  when  my 
mind  is  serious  enough,  indeed.  Perhaps  the  mind 
wanders,  tired  with  heavy  brooding." 

But  it  is  always  the  gay  word  that  could  best  bear  the 
scrutiny  of  the  poet  himself  if  he  were  to  pass  the  proofs 
of  his  own  biography.  In  writing  of  a  life  that  has  a 
superficial  look  of  disaster  and  pain,  his  biographer  has 
a  shamefaced  feeling  of  dishonesty.  Every  other  word 
is,  in  a  sense,  a  misrepresentation,  and  worse.  The 
memory  of  his  smile  shouts  out  to  them,  "  You  liars ! " 

There  was  always  courtesy  in  his  notes,  mixed  iwith 
haste    and    complaints ;    and  even  he  would    weary  of 

330 


His   Laugh 

bulletin  prose,  so  that  his  needs  and  ailments  sometimes 
came  recorded  in  doggerel : — 

I  am  aweary,  weary,  weary, 

I  am  aweary  waiting  here  ! 
Why  tarries  Everard  ?  sore  I  fear  he 

Has  forgotten  my  shirting-gear  ! 
Ah,  youth  untender  !  why  dost  thou  delay 
With  shirts  to  clothe  me,  an  untimely  tree 
Unraimented  when  all  the  woods  are  green  ? 
But  thou  delay  not  more  :  unboughten  vests 
Expect  thy  coming,  shops  with  all  their  eyes 
Wait  at  wide  gaze,  and  I  thy  shepherd  wait, 
In  Tennysonian  numbers  wooing  haste  .  .  . 

Of  great  value  is  A.  M.'s  corrective  record  of  his 
laugh  : — 

"  He  has  been  unwarily  named  with  Blake  as  one  of  the  un- 
happy poets.  I  will  not  say  he  was  ever  so  happy  as  Blake  ; — but 
few  indeed,  poets  or  others,  have  had  a  life  so  happy  as  Blake's, 
or  a  death  so  joyous  ;  but  I  affirm  of  Francis  Thompson  that  he 
had  natural  good  spirits,  and  was  more  mirthful  than  many  a  man 
of  cheerful,  of  social,  or  even  of  humorous  reputation.  What 
darkness  and  oppression  of  spirit  the  poet  underwent  was  over 
and  past  some  fifteen  years  before  he  died.  It  is  pleasant  to 
remember  Francis  Thompson's  laugh,  a  laugh  readier  than  a  girl's, 
and  it  is  impossible  to  remember  him,  with  any  real  recall,  and  not 
to  hear  it  in  mind  again.  Nothing  irritable  or  peevish  within  him 
was  discovered  when  children  had  their  laughter  at  him.  It  need 
hardly  be  told  what  the  children  laughed  at ; — say,  a  habit  of 
stirring  the  contents  of  his  cup  with  such  violence  that  his  after- 
dinner  coffee  was  shed  into  the  saucer  or  elsewhere — a  habit 
which  he  often  told  us,  at  great  length,  was  hereditary." 

His  laugh  it  is  difficult  to  keep  alive  :  the  legend  of 
his  extinguished  happiness  is  too  strong.  For  laughter  is 
commonly  discredited ;  only  Mr.  Chesterton,  for  example, 
persists  in  making  the  Almighty  capable  of  humour. 
While  we  are  all  ready  to  allow  that  thorns  make  a  crown, 
we  hold  that  bells  do  no  more  than  cap  us — the  cap  and 
bells  of  folly.     Who  ever  spoke  of  a  crown  of  bells  ? 

1  2  T 


The   Closing  Years 

The  refutation  of  the  charge  against  his  industry  lies 
in  his  published  work  and  in  the  pages  of  a  hundred 
crowded  note-books.  The  newspaper  Odes  alone  are 
sufficient  evidence  of  his  power  to  compel  even  his  muse 
to  arduous  and  humble  labours. 

These  Odes  were  pot-boiling  journalism  ;  their  inspira- 
tion by  the  clock  and  the  column  : — 

"  We  have  no  doubt  whatever  that  inspiration  will  not  fail 
you  for  so  great  a  subject — the  Jubilee  !  We  must  have  the 
copy  by  the  afternoon  of  the  21st," 

wrote  an  encouraging  editor  (Mr.  Massingham)  on  June  6, 
1897.  The  request  was  made  on  the  strength  of  Mr. 
Massingham's  admiration  for  New  Poems,  and  was  not 
refused  ;  the  ode  was  written  within  three  weeks,  and  pro- 
bably in  the  last  three  hours  of  them.  From  Mr.  Garvin 
came  another  letter  : — 

"  [une  22,  '97. 

"  Dear  Francis  Thompson, — I  get  the  Manchester  Guardian 
every  day  not  merely  by  good  hap,  but  because  it  is  the  best  daily 
in  England.  Whose  is  the  ode  ?  I  thought  on  the  leisure  of  the 
opening  and  then  saw.  Hot  Jacobite  as  I  am  for  England's  one 
legitimate  laureate  by  native  grace  and  right  divine,  I  could  not 
repress  the  movement  of  natural  pity  for  the  respectable  and 
conscientious  wearer  of  statutory  bays,  who  tries  so  hard  to  fly  as 
if  the  Times  page  were  Salisbury  Downs  and  he  a  bustard.  Every 
flap  a  stanza  ;  thirty  flaps  of  the  most  desperate  volatile  intention  ; 
and  no  forrarder  to  the  empyrean,  where  the  Thompsonian  ode 
sails  with  one  supreme  dominion  through  the  azure  deeps  of  air — 
vital,  radiant,  lovely.  I  told  you  I  was  your  poor  foster-brother 
of  prose,  in  witness  whereof  is  my  thought  of  England's  dead,  and 
other  little  thoughts  ;  in  that  the  soul  danced  in  me  to  the  great 
pulse  of  your  ode. — Always  yours,  Louis  Garvin." 

Of  an  article  on  Browning  Mr.  Garvin  had  written  : — 

"  Dear  Francis  Thompson, — Tell  me  by  what  native  instinct 
or  faculty  acquired  you  so  easily  avoid  henotheism  in  your  critical 
writings.     My  poet  of  the  moment,  as  I  am  drawn  to  his  centre 

332 


The  Newspaper  Odes 

and  become  enveloped  in  his  light,  seems  to  absorb  all  the  radiance 
of  all  song.  I  know  there  are  exterior  suns,  but  the  poet  only 
remembered  bears  up  with  difficulty  against  him  immediately 
contemplated.  It  is  henotheism  exactly.  But  here  you  take 
the  crabbed  case  of  Browning,  you  extricate  him  from  the  multi- 
tude of  words  and  you  directly  declare  middle  justice  upon  him, 
and  so  he  betakes  him  to  his  place.  Yet  if  a  word  had  been  said 
against  a  certain  oleaginous  obesity  of  optimism  that  glistens  upon 
the  plump  countenance  of  this  well-groomed  poet  in  easy  circum- 
stances, mayhap  it  had  been  well. 

"  But  I  went  most  willingly  with  you  when  you  laid  your  finger 
upon  Browning's  Elizabethan  aptitude  for  the  dramatic  form  of 
motive  analysis  and  critical  comment.  And  that  not  because  of 
Browning.  I  have  long  had  it  in  my  mind  to  say  that  I  feel  the 
same  faculty  to  be  latent  in  you  somewhere.  I  fancy  very  strongly 
that  you  could  handle  the  Elizabethan  form  better  than  anybody 
else  these  two  hundred  years  and  fifty  and  a  little  more.  The 
Elizabethan  spirit  of  course  you  have  to  that  degree.  The  point 
about  Browning's  manipulation  of  character  and  circumstance  is 
completely  put.  Don't  you  wish,  though,  to  take  the  other  part — 
volition  diving  at  the  imminent  billow  of  life  and  buffeting  a  sea 
of  circumstance  ?  Indefinite  potentialities  I  feel  sure  you  have — 
especially  of  the  drama  that  gives  a  separate  voice  and  name  to  all 
the  sides  of  one's  own  numerous  personality.1  I  pine  for  the  odes. 
— Always  yours  affectionately  (if  I  may  be),       Louis  Garvin." 

In  a  letter  to  his  sister  about  the  Jubilee  Ode,  Francis 
says  : — 

"  Thereon  forthwith  followed  the  severe  and  most 
unhappy  cab  accident  about  which  I  informed  you.  .  .  . 
I  have  had  a  year  of  disasters.  You  will  notice  a  new 
address  (39  Goldney-road,  Harrow-road,  N.W.)  at  the 
head  of  this  letter.  I  have  been  burned  out  of  my 
former  lodgings.  The  curtain  caught  fire  just  after  I 
had  got  into  bed,  and  I  upset  the  lamp  in  trying  to  ex- 
tinguish it.  My  hands  were  badly  blistered,  and  I 
sustained  a  dreadful  shock,  besides  having  to  walk  the 
streets  all  night.     The  room  was  quite  burned  out." 

1  Note  by  F.  T. :  "  That  is  not  drama,  but  lyric." 

333 


The  Closing  Years 

This  letter  he  never  posted,  so  that  his  sister  writes 
out  of  her  unwearied  solicitude  two  years  later  : — 

"  My  dear  Frank, — Doubtless  you  will  be  surprised  to  receive 
a  letter  from  me  after  so  long  a  silence.  But  the  apparent  negli- 
gence is  not  my  fault,  for  I  have  been  trying  for  twelve  months 
past  to  obtain  your  address,  and  only  succeeded  about  a  fortnight 
ago.  You  see,  my  dear  brother,  I  have  no  one  to  give  me  any  infor- 
mation of  you,  and  as  you  never  write  to  me  the  consequence  is 
I  am  utterly  in  the  dark.  My  life  is  very  uneventful,  therefore 
my  letters  to  you  must,  I  know,  be  very  uninteresting  ;  but  they 
must  just  show  you  that  you  have  still  got  a  sister  who  loves  you 
and  thinks  of  you  and  also  prays  much  for  your  well-being  here 
and  hereafter." 

Later  the  old  century  was  "  sung  on  her  way  "  in  an 
ode  appearing  in  the  Academy,  at  the  beginning  of  1901  ; 
and  in  the  death  of  Cecil  Rhodes  (March  26,  1902)  his 
editor  saw  the  occasion  for  another  paper  ode.  Mr. 
Hind  describes  the  hasty  manner  of  its  composition, 
and  when  it  appeared  in  the  Academy  for  April  12,  1902, 
it  bore  the  marks  of  a  trumped-up  emotion's  inspiration. 
In  May  1902  Mr.  Fisher,  now  of  the  Chronicle,  asked  F.  T. 
for  a  Peace  Ode,  to  be  pigeon-holed  against  the  con- 
clusion of  the  South  African  War. 

Very  often  F.  T.  would  decide  for  an  eight-hour  day, 
and  offer  himself,  through  my  father,  to  the  journals. 
Like  most  men  who  find  work  irksome  when  they  have 
it,  and  delay  all  commissions,  he  imagined,  when  he  had 
none,  that  the  difficulty  was  in  the  getting.  "The 
Academy  should  not  and  shall  not  have  a  monopoly  of 
me,"  he  writes,  without  any  provocation  from  the 
Academy.  "Take  this  chance  for  me  now."  (W.  M.  had 
mentioned  the  Daily  Chronicle  as  an  opening)  "  Bite  a 
cherry  while  it  bobs  against  your  mouth."  Nor  were 
his  reasons  for  complaint  against  his  journalistic  fate 
always  ungrounded.  The  Academy  demanded  no  mono- 
poly, being  willing  to  accept  his  unpunctual  copy 
whenever  it  arrived,  and  in  almost  any  quantity;    but 

334 


Journalistic   Flurries 

elsewhere  minor  reverses  were  made  the  most  of.  F.  T. 
writes  : — 

"  I  have  just  got  home.  The  Imperial  and  Colonial 
Magazine  asked  me  to  submit  '  one  or  two  poems '  of  an 
Imperialist  nature.  I  sent  them  one,  as  you  know. 
They  have  rejected  it.  If  the  poem  sent  through  you  is 
also  rejected  (as  I  expect)  I  shall  give  up.  I  cannot  go 
on  here — or  anywhere  else — under  these  circumstances. 
Try  as  I  will,  all  doors  are  shut  against  me.  If  your 
poem  miscarries  that  is  the  end. — Yours  ever,     F.  T." 

Thus  were  his  fears  communicated  to  the  person 
who  made  them  futile  and  absurd.  But  Thompson 
would  never  forgo  them. 

Commissions,  however,  when  they  came,  were  rejected 
in  silence,  or  accepted  and  neglected — 

"  Dear  Sir,— I  shall  be  greatly  obliged  if  you  can  send  me  the 
articles  you  kindly  agreed  to  write  for  the  Catholic  Encyclopaedia 
in  the  letters  B  and  C" 

is  a  note  I  find  among  his  papers,  and  others  came, 
were  ignored  and  lost.  "  Having  done  an  article  for 
the  Chronicle,"  he  writes,  "  I  have  still  seventeen  volumes 
of  poetry  undone  for  it."  When  Mr.  Hind  left  the 
Academy  the  poet  was  in  some  flurry  and  distress ; 
having  called  on  the  new  editor,  Mr.  Teignmouth  Shore, 
he  writes  : — 

"The  interview  last  Friday  landed  me  on  a  doubtfully 
hospitable  Shore.  All  articles  to  be  cut  down  to  a 
column.  Immediate  result,  fifteen  shillings  for  this 
week.  .  .  .  Therefore  am  waiting  most  anxiously  for 
your  return,  when  I  may  explain  all  the  complexities  of 
the  situation.  At  present  most  perplexed  and  anxious. 
Do  not  cut  short  your  holiday ;  yet  I  do  need  to  see 
you." 

He  continued  fitfully  on  the  Academy,  but  gradually 

335 


The  Closing  Years 

transferred  his  allegiance  to  the  Athenceum.  In  the 
meantime  my  father  arranged  that  a  publishing  house 
whose  literary  adviser  he  was  should  supply  him  with 
work  that  could  be  done  at  any  time  and  be  paid  for 
at  any  moment.  The  Life  of  St.  Ignatius  was  com- 
missioned. He  delivered  every  few  pages  as  he  finished 
them — three  were  passport  to  a  pound — and,  so  final 
was  his  method  of  composition,  he  neither  desired  nor 
needed  to  see  a  single  page  of  the  manuscript  again. 
The  reviewing  my  father  obtained  for  him  on  the 
Athenceum  he  did  with  success  till  within  a  month  or 
two  of  his  death.  Letters  from  Mr.  Vernon  Rendall 
illustrate  the  courtesy  of  his  editors : — 

"Athen/eum  Office,  December  20,  1905. 

"  Dear  Mr.  Thompson, — I  am  very  sorry  to  hear  of  your  illness, 
which  may  have  been  aggravated  I  fear  by  our  clerks.  I  will  try 
to  make  them  send  things  correctly  in  future.  Do  not  hurry  now 
about  anything  you  have.  You  are  sure  to  be  in  need  of  rest  and 
recreation — which,  indeed,  is  supposed  to  be  the  fair  perquisite 
of  all  at  this  season. — Yours  very  truly,  Vernon  Rendall." 

And  again  : — 

"  Athenaeum  Office,  March  14,  1906. 

"  Dear  Mr.  Thompson, — I  was  very  glad  to  hear  of  your  re- 
covery, and  hope  you  will  now  enjoy  established  health.  We  were 
clearly  as  much  at  fault  as  you  in  the  delay  of  the  notices  you 
mention.  I  quite  agree  with  you  about  Morris.  Generally,  I  try 
to  send  you  books  worth  reading,  and,  tho'  we  never  have  too 
much  space  to  spare,  I  am  sure  that  you  know  as  well  as  anybody 
the  value  of  a  book,  and  I  hope  you  will  not  restrict  your  notice 
of  what  you  think  really  good.: — Yours  very  truly, 

V.  Rendall." 

And,  later,  from  another  office  : — 

"The  Nation,  April  9,  1907. 

"  Dear  Mr.  Thompson, — Mrs.  Meynell  will  have  sent  you  a 
letter  of  mine  about  the  beautiful  poem  ["  The  Fair  Inconstant "] 
which  you  wrote  for  us  last  week,  and  about  the  more  elaborate 
work,  which,  in  continuance  of  old  Daily  Chronicle  days,  you  might 

336 


His  Plays 


be  willing  to  do  for  us.  I  have  always  retained  the  utmost  admira- 
tion for  your  poetic  genius,  and  regard  with  much  warmth  its 
association  with  a  paper  like  the  Nation. — Yours  very  truly, 

H.  W.  Massingham." 

Of  another  literary  enterprise  which,  like  his  journalism, 
shews  that  he  could  be  diligent,  he  writes  : — 

"  Dear  Wilfrid, — I  have  summoned  up  pluck  to  send 
my  little  play  l  (which  Mrs.  Meynell  and  you  have  seen) 
to  W.  Archer,  asking  him  whether  it  afforded  any  en- 
couragement to  serious  study  of  writing  for  the  stage. 
His  answer  is  unfavourable — though  he  refrains  from  a 
precise  negative.  This  sets  my  mind  at  rest  on  that 
matter.  None  the  less,  I  wanted  to  read  you  one  or  two 
bits  from  my  chucked-up  Saul,  since  they  seemed  to  me 
better  than  I  knew." 

"  I  never  yet  missed  my  Xmas  wishes  to  you,  and  it 
seems  uglily  ominous  if  I  should  do  so  now.  But  I 
have  been  working  desperately  at  a  poem  for  the 
Academy.  .  .  .  When  I  met  Whitten  this  morning  he 
looked  uneasy,  repeatedly  advised  me  to  '  get  something.' 
I  explained  I  already  had  '  got '  some  tea  (with  my  break- 
fast). 'Yes,  but  —  get  something  more,'  he  said,  and 
alleged  that  I  was  looking  shrunk  with  cold. 

1  This  play  was  again  unfavourably  received  when,  in  1903,  he  submitted  it 
to  T.  P.'s  Weekly.     It  is  thus  set  forth  on  his  MS.  title  page : 

NAPOLEON   JUDGES 

A  Tragedy  in  Two  Scenes 

Dramatis  Persons 
Napoleon. 

General  Augereau. 

Madame  Lebrun  {an  opera-dancer,  Augereau's  Mistress). 
President  of  the  Court  Martial. 
A  French  Deserter. 
Officers.     Soldiers. 

Place. — Augereau's  Camp.  Time.  —  The  Italian  Campaign  of  1796. 
During  the  first  scene  Napoleon  is  absent  from  Augereau's  Camp. 

Of  another  class  is  a  modern  comedy,  full  of  laboriously  smart  give  and  take, 
called  "  Man  Proposes,  b%tt  Woman  Disposes.  Un  Conle  sans  Raconteur.  In 
Two  Scenes." 

337  y 


The  Closing  Year 


6      — S 


"  Of  course  I  will  come  in  to-morrow  night.  Did  I 
not,  you  might  be  sure  I  was  knocked  off  my  legs 
altogether,  and  I  should  feel  that  the  world  had  gone  off 
its  hinges.  I  have  never  missed  seeing  you  at  Christmas 
save  when  I  was  at  Pantasaph.  Every  happy  wish  to 
you,  dear  Wilfrid,  and  may  God  be  as  kind  to  you  as 
you  have  ever  been  to  me." 


333 


CHAPTER   XVIT:    LAST   THINGS 

Francis's  health  often  dismayed  him,  and  his  terrors 
both  in  regard  to  sicknesses  and  politics  covered  many 
pages  of  threatening  letters.  The  mere  streets  became 
more  and  more  an  oppression.  Even  Elgin  Avenue 
grew  (in  1900)  as  ugly  to  him  as  it  always  is  to  men 
less  happily  indifferent.  At  such  times  he  could  write 
to  W.  M.  in  the  strain  of  the  following  letter  : — 

"  I  designed  to  call  in  on  Wednesday,  but  was  sick 
with  a  horrible  journey  on  the  underground.  To-day, 
though  better,  I  am  still  not  well.  I  hope  I  may  manage 
to-morrow.  I  have  been  full  of  worry,  depression,  and 
unconquerable  forebodings.  The  other  day,  as  I  was 
walking  outside  my  lodgings,  steeped  in  ominous 
thoughts,  a  tiny  child  began  to  sing  beside  me  in  her 
baby  voice,  over  and  over  repeating  : — 

'  0  clanger,  0  clanger 
0  danger  is  coming  near  ! ' 

My  heart  sank,  and  I  almost  trembled  with  fear." 

He  prophesied  of  war,  and  was  tormented  whole  days 
by  complications  in  the  East,  and  the  notion  of  a 
Yellow  invasion.  And  even  West  Kensington,  when 
small-pox  was  announced  there,  seemed  to  come  march- 
ing on  him,  a  Birnam  forest  of  bricks.  It  was  illness, 
with  fear  for  a  symptom.  "  Disaster  was,  and  is,  draw- 
ing downwards.  .  .  .  There  are  storm-clouds  over  the 
whole  horizon,  and  I  feel  my  private  fate  involved.  I 
am  oppressed  with  fatality,"  he  writes  in  one  letter  (1900), 
and  on  the  next  page  is  involved  in  jokes  which  were 

339 


Last  Things 

heavy,  not  with  fatality.    Other  letters  contain  complaints 
of  dreams  akin  to  Coleridge's  : — 

"  A  most  miserable  fortnight  of  torpid,  despondent  days,  and 
affrightful  nights,  dreams  having  been  in  part  the  worst  realities 
of  my  life." 

On  the  engagement  in  1903  of  Monica  of  "  The  Poppy," 
of  "  Monica  Thought  Dying,"  and  of  Sister  Songs,  Fran- 
cis wrote  to  her  : — 

"28  Elgin  Avenue, 
Saturday. 

u  Dear  Monica, — I  would  have  answered  you  long 
since  if  I  had  not  been  so  worried  with  work  that  I  do 
not  know  how  to  get  through  it.  Having  got  rid  of  my 
poem,  I  have  taken  a  little  rest  from  work,  to  which  I 
had  no  right,  and  my  neuralgia  seems  happily  to  have 
got  better — though  I  am  almost  afraid  to  say  so,  for  I 
still  feel  very  weak  and  jaded,  so  that  it  might  easily 
return.     Therefore  I  take  this  moment  to  write  to  you. 

"  Most  warmly  and  sincerely  I  congratulate  you,  dear 
Monica,  on  what  is  the  greatest  event  in  a  woman's  life 
— or  a  man's,  to  my  thinking.  .  .  .  Extend  to  him,  if  he 
will  allow  me,  the  affection  which  you  once — so  long 
since — purchased  with  a  poppy  in  that  Friston  field. 
'  Keep  it,'  you  said  (though  you  have  doubtless  for- 
gotten what  you  said)  '  as  long  as  you  live.'  I  have 
kept  it,  and  with  it  I  keep  you,  my  dearest.  I  do  not 
say  or  show  much,  for  I  am  an  old  man  compared  with 
you,  and  no  companion  for  your  young  life.  But  never, 
my  dear,  doubt  I  love  you.  And  if  I  have  the  chance  to 
show  it,  I  will  do. 

"  I  am  ill  at  saying  all  I  doubtless  should  say  to  a  young 
girl  on  her  engagement.  I  have  no  experience  in  it,  my 
Monica.  I  can  only  say  I  love  you  ;  and  if  there  is  any 
kind  and  tender  thing  I  should  have  said,  believe  it  is  in 
my  heart,  though  it  be  not  here. — My  dear,  your  true 
friend,  Francis  Thompson." 

340 


He  Quotes   "The  Poppy" 

At  her  bidding,«he  went,  on  her  marriage  day,  to  the 
Church  of  St.  Mary-of-the- Angels  in  Bayswater.  He 
had  never,  in  all  probability,  failed  a  tryst  before  by 
coming  to  it  too  early,  but  to  all  her  commands  he  was 
obedient,  and  his  mistake  was  but  the  symptom  of  his 
anxiety  to  be  present.  The  poppy  that  she  picked  and 
gave  him,  with  "  Keep  it  as  long  as  you  live,"  was  found 
in  the  leaves  of  his  own  copy  of  Poems — the  only  volume 
of  his  own  works  that  he  kept  by  him.  So  were  all  her 
injunctions  observed.  Having  gone  too  early  to  Church, 
he  left  too  early,  and  wrote  : — 

"Westboukne  Grovk,  12.30  P.M. 

Wednesday ,  June  14,  1903. 

"  Dearest  Monica, — You  were  a  prophetess  (though 
you  needed  not  to  be  a  sibyl)  to  foretell  my  tricks  and 
manners.  I  reached  the  church  just  ten  minutes  after 
twelve,  to  find  vacancy,  as  you  had  forewarned  me.  A 
young  lady  that  might  have  been  yourself  approached 
the  church  by  the  back  entrance,  just  as  I  came  away  ; 
but  on  inspection  she  had  no  trace  of  poppy-land.  There 
must  have  been  other  nuptial  couples  about,  I  think. 

"  It  seems  but  the  other  clay,  my  dearest  sister  (may 
I  not  call  you  so  ?  For  you  are  all  to  me  as  younger 
sisters  and  brothers  —  to  me,  who  have  long  ceased 
practically  to  have  any  sisters  of  my  own,  so  com- 
pletely am  I  sundered  from  them),  that  you  were  a  child 
with  me  at  Friston,  and  I  myself  still  very  much  of  a 
child.     Now  the  time  is  come  I  foresaw  then — 

Knowing  well,  when  some  few  days  are  over. 
You  vanish  from  me  to  another. 

"  You  may  pardon  me  if  I  feel  a  little  sadness,  even 
while  I  am  glad  for  your  gladness,  my  very  dear. 

"  I  was  designing  to  call  in  to-night,  till  I  learned  from 
you  that  you  would  be  occupied  with  your  wedding- 
party.     Then  I  hoped  I  might  have  got  to  you  last  night 

34i 


Last  Things 

instead,  but  could  not  manage  it.  So,  to  my  sorrow,  I 
must  be  content  only  to  write.  Had  I  known  before,  I 
would  have  called  in  on  Sunday,  at  all  costs,  rather  than 
defer  it  to  (as  it  turns  out)  the  impossible  Wednesday. 

"  I  shall  be  with  you  all,  at  any  rate,  in  spirit. — Yours 
ever  dearly,  my  dear,  Francis  Thompson." 

A  few  years  before  his  death  his  manner  had  changed. 
His  platitudes,  now,  were  merely  a  means  of  getting 
through  an  evening  without  making  a  demonstration 
of  the  trouble  he  was  in.  That  his  ills  might  not  be 
exposed  he  kept  covering  them  up  with  talk,  as  con- 
stantly as  a  mother  tucks  in  a  child  restless  in  fever. 
The  man  who  always  takes  laudanum  is  always  in 
need  of  it,  and  when  he  is  in  need  he  is  ill.  He  is 
too  ill  to  think,  too  uncomfortable  to  meditate  or  be 
wise. 

Whenever  he  postponed  his  dram,  and  spent  his  day 
instead  with  his  friends,  he  would  say  an  easy  thing 
once,  and  rinding  it  easy,  would  say  it  over  and  over 
again.  While  he  spent  an  evening  explaining  that  last 
August  was  hot,  but  this  hotter,  his  cry  really  was, 
"  Where  is  my  laudanum  ?  "  Nor  was  his  need  only 
physical:  his  soul,  too,  was  crying,  "Where  is  my  God, 
my  Maker,  Who  giveth  songs  in  the  Night  ?  Who 
teacheth  us  more  than  the  beasts  of  the  earth,  and 
maketh  us  wiser  than  the  fowls  of  Heaven  ?  "  I  am 
told  by  a  doctor  that  one  of  the  greatest  pains  of  re- 
linquishing opium  is  the  sense  of  the  reason's  unfitness. 
Thought  is  thrown  out  of  joint,  and  hurts  like  a  dislo- 
cated shoulder. 

"Nature,"  says  Emerson,  "never  spares  the  opium  or 
nepenthe,  but  wherever  she  mars  her  creature  with  some 
deformity  or  defect,  lays  her  poppies  plentifully  on  the 
bruise."  And  even  for  the  bruises  made  by  poppies  she 
has  her  salve.  Some  redress,  a  rebate  of  the  price 
paid,  was  made  to  Francis  Thompson  for  the  agony  of 

342 


Laud 


anum 


the  opium  habit.  That  he  seldom  spoke  of  it  meant  that 
it  was  a  thing  too  bitter  to  speak  of ;  meant,  too,  that  it 
was  at  times  a  thing  too  little  to  speak  of,  that  Nature 
minimised  its  terrors.  There  is  mercy  for  the  slave  of  a 
bad  habit :  the  more  confirmed,  the  more  often  must 
there  be  periods  during  which  its  mastery  is  forgotten, 
even  in  its  presence.  The  sorriest  drunkard  is  not 
necessarily  the  drunkard  oftenest  sorry.  The  opium- 
eater  is  sometimes  persuaded  of  his  own  invented 
theory  of  the  causes  of  his  weakness,  of  its  uses  and 
necessity.  Francis,  who  would  have  loathed  himself 
to  the  point  of  extinction,  or  redemption,  if  he  had  been 
an  ordinary  sinner,  who  would  have  found  life  with 
himself  intolerable  had  he  sullied  life  with  common 
offences  against  the  Law,  was  provided  with  some  sort 
of  protection  against  remorse  for  his  own  particular 
failing.  Nature  gave  him  poppies  to  set  against 
poppies. 

Periods  of  misery  and  dejection  came  to  him,  as  to  his 
fellows.  With  Coleridge  he  could  in  certain  moods 
have  written  : — "  The  stimulus  of  conversation  suspends 
the  terror  that  haunts  my  mind  ;  but  when  I  am  alone, 
the  horrors  that  I  have  suffered  from  laudanum,  the 
degradation,  the  blighted  utility,  almost  overwhelm  me." 
And  again  in  words  very  like  de  Quincey's,  Coleridge 
speaks  of  "fearful  slavery,"  of  being  "seduced  to  the 
accursed  habit  ignorantly."  From  the  starker  visita- 
tions of  remorse  Coleridge,  too,  was  justly  sheltered. 
His  son  has  said  for  him  : — 

"  If  my  Father  sought  more  from  opium  than  the  mere  absence 
of  pain,  I  feel  assured  it  was  not  luxurious  sensations  or  the  glowing 
phantasmagoria  of  passive  dreams  ;  but  that  the  power  of  the 
medicine  might  keep  down  the  agitations  of  his  nervous  system, 
like  a  strong  hand  grasping  the  strings  of  some  shattered  lyre." 

His  own  "my  sole  sensuality  was  not  to  be  in  pain" 
is  sufficient  for  himself  and  for  others. 

343 


Last  Things 

F.  T.'s  comments  on  Coleridge's  case  are  valuable, 
since  they  rebound  in  his  own  direction  : — 

"Then  came  ill-health  and  opium.  Laudanum  by  the 
wine-glassful  and  half-pint  at  a  time  soon  reduced  him  to 
the  journalist-lecturer  and  philosopher,  who  projected  all 
things,  executed  nothing  ;  only  the  eloquent  tongue  left. 
So  he  perished — the  mightiest  intellect  of  the  day,  and 
great  was  the  fall  thereof.  There  remain  of  him  his 
poems,  and  a  quantity  of  letters  painful  to  read.  They 
show  him  wordy,  full  of  weak  lamentation,  deplorably 
feminine  and  strengthless." 

And  again  : — 

"  It  is  of  the  later  Coleridge  that  we  possess  the  most 
luminous  descriptions.  A  slack,  shambling  man,  flabby 
in  face  and  form  and  character  ;  womanly  and  unstayed 
of  nature  ;  torrentuous  of  golden  talk,  the  poet  sub- 
merged and  feebly  struggling  in  opium-darkened  oceans 
of  German  philosophy,  amid  which  he  finally  foundered, 
striving  to  the  last  to  fish  up  gigantic  projects  from  the 
bottom  of  a  daily  half-pint  of  laudanum.  And  over  the 
wreck  of  that  most  piteous  and  terrible  figure  of  all 
our  literary  history  shines  and  will  shine  for  ever  the 
five-pointed  star  of  his  glorious  youth  ;  those  poor  five 
resplendent  poems,  for  which  he  paid  the  devil's  price  of 
a  desolated  life  and  unthinkably  blasted  powers." 

Even  if  Francis  spilled  brown  laudanum  on  his  paper 
as  he  wrote  those  superlatives,  he  did  not  fit  the  cap  of 
disaster  to  two  heads. 

In  1906  he  again  visited  the  monastery  at  Crawley, 
where  his  friends  had  offered  him  hospitality  over  many 
years,  and  helped  him  to  keep  an  occasional  feast.  I 
take  a  sample  at  random  of  Prior  Anselm's  courtesy  : — 

"Holy  Saturday. 

"  Dear  Francis, — The  Alleluias  have  been  sung,  and  I  echo 
them  to  you,  dearest  friend,  hoping  they  bring  you  joy  and 
peace  and  blessings." 

344 


V 


If) 
V 

JZ 

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rt 

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55 

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l*J 

t/5 

■^ 

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«> 

■^s 

& 

15 


At  Crawley 

Again  : — 

"  Dear  Francis, — Could  you  give  me  and  the  community  the 
great  pleasure  of  your  company  on  the  Feast  of  St.  Anthony,  when 
the  Bishop  of  Southwark  will  assist  ?  I  do  hope  you  will  come,  as 
it  is  the  last  feast  I  shall  have  before  the  Chapter,  an  event  that 
may  scatter  us  all  to  the  four  winds  of  heaven." 

And  again  : — 

"  The  community  and  particularly  myself  would  be  delighted 
to  have  the  pleasure  of  your  company  on  Oct.  4th,  the  Feast  of 
our  holy  Father  St.  Francis  and  your  name-day.  I  am  looking 
forward  to  some  long  talks.  How  I  long  for  a  return  of  the 
happy  days  at  Pantasaph,  when  we  discussed  all  things  in  heaven 
and  on  earth  and  in  infernis." 

Before  his  departure  to  Crawley  Francis  wrote  to  me  : — 

"...  I  feel  depressed  at  going  away  from  you  all — 
it  seems  like  a  breaking  with  my  past,  the  beginning  of 
I  know  not  what  change,  or  what  doubtful  future. 
Change  as  change  is  always  hateful  to  me  ;  yet  my  life 
has  been  changeful  enough  in  various  ways.  And  I 
have  noticed  these  changes  always  come  in  shocks  and 
crises  after  a  prolonged  period  of  monotony.  I  n  my  youth 
I  sighed  against  monotony,  and  wanted  romance  ;  now 
I  dread  romance.  Romance  is  romantic  only  for  the 
hearers  and  onlookers,  not  for  the  actors.  It  is  hard 
to  enter  its  gates  (happily) ;  but  to  repass  them  is  im- 
possible. Once  step  aside  from  the  ways  of  '  comfort- 
able men,'  you  cannot  regain  them.  You  will  live  and 
die  under  the  law  of  the  intolerable  thing  they  call 
romance.  Though  it  may  return  on  you  in  cycles  and 
crises,  you  are  ever  dreading  its  next  manifestation. 
Nor  need  you  be  '  romantic '  to  others  ;  the  most  terrible 
romances  are  inward,  and  the  intolerableness  of  them 
is  that  they  pass  in  silence.  .  .  .  One  person  told  me 
that  my  own  life  was  a  beautiful  romance.  '  Beautiful ' 
is  not  my  standpoint.     The  sole  beautiful  romances  are 

345 


Last  Thinp-s 


the  Saints',  which  are  essentially  inward.  But  I  never 
meant  to  write  all  this." 

All  this,  and  much  unwritten  trepidation,  because  he 
had  to  travel  three-fourths  of  the  railroad  to  Brighton  ! 
Of  all  places  Sussex,  he  had  said,  was  the  place  where 
he  preferred  to  live  ;  but  the  getting  him  there  was  as 
difficult  as  a  journey  to  Siberia.  And  from  Crawley  he 
wrote  : — 

"  I  am  a  helpless  waterlogged  and  dismasted  vessel, 
drifting  without  power  to  guide  my  own  course,  and 
equally  far  from  port  whichever  way  I  turn  my  eyes. 
I  can  only  fling  this  bottle  into  the  sea  and  leave  you  to 
discern  my  impotent  and  wrecked  condition." 

The  flung  bottle  was  stamped  and  caught  the  post ! 

In  the  following  year  (1907)  it  became  evident  that  F.  T. 
was  again  in  urgent  need  of  change.  He  was  thinner, 
even  less  punctual,  more  languorous  when  he  fell  into 
fits  of  abstraction  ;  less  precise  when  he  would  have 
assumed  the  pathetically  alert  step  and  speech  by 
which  he  had  been  used  to  respond  to  introductions  and 
the  calls  of  the  very  unexacting  establishment  he  still 
visited  sometimes  twice,  sometimes  thrice,  and  always 
once  a  week.  He  had  grown  listless  and  slow,  and  it 
was  proposed  he  should  go  to  the  country.  "  Certainly, 
Wilfrid,"  he  responded,  coming  the  next  evening  to 
explain  it  was  impossible ;  his  boots,  which  looked 
stronger  than  himself,  would  not  travel,  he  said  ;  the 
coat  covering  his  insufficient  shoulders  was  insufficient. 
Boots  and  shirts  were  bought.  It  was  arranged  that  we 
should  call  for  him  the  next  day  at  eleven.  Accordingly 
my  father  and  I  and  a  friend  presented  ourselves  in 
a  motor  at  his  dwelling,  prepared  to  wait  his  dressing- 
time.  But  he  was  already  out ;  nor  could  his  land- 
lady, who  had  not  seen  him  abroad  at  such  an  hour 
in  all  her  experience,  say  why  or  where.     When  at  last 

346 


He   Goes   to  Newbuildings 

he  came,  he  carried  a  paper  bag  with  food  purchased 
at  a  shop  far  distant.  No  gourmet  could  have  been 
at  greater  pains  to  secure  the  particular  pork-pie,  and 
no  other,  that  he  wanted. 

At  first  he  and  I  had  sleeping  quarters  in  an  indepen- 
dent pavilion  among  fern  and  young  oaks,  as  guests  of 
Mr.  Wilfrid  Blunt  at  Newbuildings.  Breakfast  and  a 
log-fire  used  to  be  prepared  for  us  by  David,  a  genius 
among  odd-men,  who  came  through  the  dew  before 
we  were  awake,  and  disturbed  us  with  the  fragrance 
of  his  toast  and  coffee.  Francis  would  get  up  quite 
early,  but  at  night  he  was  late.  I  used  to  see  him  in 
his  room,  propped  against  pillows,  with  candles  burning 
and  his  prayer-book  in  his  hand  far  into  the  night ; 
and  his  light  would  still  be  bright  when  the  stars  had 
begun  to  grow  faint  in  the  plantation. 

Later,  he  was  moved  to  David's  cottage,  whence  he  was 
fetched  every  day  to  Newbuildings,  half  a  mile  away, 
for  luncheon  and  tea.  David  and  Mrs.  David  had  gained 
the  unwilling  confidence  of  the  invalid,  and  Mr.  Wilfrid 
Blunt,  adept  in  everything,  himself  saw  that  medical 
help  was  necessary.  In  September  a  doctor  was  con- 
sulted, but  if  no  effective  treatment  followed  it  was  pro- 
bably because  Francis's  evasions  successfully  prevented 
a  satisfactory  diagnosis. 

To  the  care  he  received  in  Sussex  there  was  no  end. 
On  September  6,  1907,  a  companion  of  Mr.  Blunt 
wrote  : — 

"  Mr.  Blunt  paid  Mr.  Thompson  a  long  visit  last  evening,  and 
I  hear  to-day  that  he  is  better.  He  told  Mr.  Blunt  that  he  will 
stay  here  for  the  present.  The  doctor  is  going  to  see  him  again. 
Mr.  Thompson  liked  him,  which  is  something  gained,  and  he  is 
also  pleased  with  David  and  his  wife.  Mr.  Thompson  has  not  come 
to-day,  but  we  have  sent  twice,  and  the  boy  will  enquire  again  this 
evening." 

His  little  tragedy  at  Newbuildings  was  a  wasp-sting. 
Enmity  had  started  some  days  before,   when    a  wasp 

347 


Last  Things 

fell  into  his  wine-glass.  It  got  out  and  was  staggering 
on  the  table  when  I  came  upon  the  scene.  Francis 
stood  still,  watching  with  fire  in  his  eye.  "You  drunken 
brute,"  he  said  with  loud  severity.  But  no  wasp, 
drunken  or  respectable,  would  he  kill,  though  he  could 
be  bitter.  The  next  day  he  was  stung,  and  Mr.  Wilfrid 
Blunt  holds  it  of  faith  that  for  all  that  summer,  after  the 
poet's  malediction,  no  wasps  buzzed  in  Sussex.  "  Sir, 
to  leave  things  out  of  a  book  merely  because  people 
tell  you  they  will  not  be  believed,  is  meanness,"  says 
Mr.  Blunt  in  the  words  of  Dr.  Johnson.  For  all  that 
(since  a  biographer's  unbelief  must  count  for  something) 
I  do  not  here  record  the  lesser  miracles  remembered 
by  Mr.  Blunt.  But  the  following  (an  earlier  experience) 
is  of  Francis's  own  telling,  in  Health  and  Holiness : — 

li  In  solitude  a  poet  underwent  profound  sadness  and 
suffered  brief  exultations  of  power :  the  wild  miseries  of 
a  Berlioz  gave  place  to  accesses  of  half-pained  delight. 
On  a  day  when  the  skirts  of  a  prolonged  darkness  were 
drawing  off  for  him,  he  walked  the  garden,  inhaling  the 
keenly  languorous  relief  of  mental  and  bodily  convales- 
cence, the  nerves  sensitised  by  suffering.  Passing  in 
a  reverie  before  an  arum,  he  suddenly  was  aware  of  a 
minute  white-stoled  child  sitting  on  the  lily.  For  a 
second  he  viewed  her  with  surprised  delight,  but  no 
wonder  ;  then  returning  to  consciousness,  he  recognised 
the  hallucination  almost  in  the  instant  of  her  vanishing." 

Father  Gerrard,  who  met  him  in  Sussex,  afterwards 
wrote  : — 

"  Only  a  few  weeks  ago,  I  was  chatting  with  Francis  Thompson 
in  his  cosy  retreat  at  Southwater,  whither  he  had  gone  as  the 
guest  of  Mr.  Wilfrid  Blunt,  to  see  if  haply  he  might  pull  together  his 
shattered  frame.  But  the  phthisis  fiend  had  caught  him  in  a  tight 
grip.  He  was  a  dying  man,  and  an  old  man,  although  only  forty- 
eight  years  of  age.  Still,  even  in  his  extremity  the  characteristics 
of  his  life  were  manifest,  a  shrinking  from  fellowship,  a  keen  per- 
ception and  love  of  the  Church,  a  ready  and  masterful  power  of 

348 


In   Hospital 


language.  I  could  not  say  that  conversation  with  him  was  ever 
an  easy  thing,  if  by  conversation  one  means  unceasing  talk.  Be- 
sides talk  there  were  thoughtful  silences.  Then,  after  the  thought, 
came  the  outpouring  of  its  rich  expression.  The  doings  of  the 
outside  world  had  little  interest  for  him,  but  the  messages  which 
I  had  for  him  from  his  little  circle  of  friends  set  him  all  aglow." 

He  returned  weaker  than  he  went.  In  his  extremity 
of  feebleness  any  hurt  seemed  grievous  to  him.  Upon  an 
umbrella  falling  against  him  in  the  railway  carriage,  he 
turned  to  me  with  a  tremulous  :  "  I  am  the  target  of  all 
disasters  !  "  And  when  a  busy-body  of  a  fellow  asked 
him,  on  account  of  his  notable  thinness  :  "  Do  you 
suffer  with  your  chest,  sir  ?  "  Thompson,  who  had  but 
one  lung,  and  that  diseased,  answered  sharply,  "  No  !  " 
Even  then  he  did  not  know  the  extent  of  his  trouble. 

In  error  he  attributed  all  his  ills  to  one  cause.  My 
father,  seeing  him  on  his  return,  said  to  him,  "  Francis, 
you  are  ill."  "  Yes,  Wilfrid,"  he  answered,  "  I  am  more 
ill  than  you  think"  ;  and  then  spoke  a  word  from  which 
both  had  refrained  for  ten  years.  u  I  am  dying  from 
laudanum  poisoning." 

My  father  asked  him  if  he  were  willing  to  go  to  the 
Hospital  of  St.  John  and  St.  Elizabeth.  The  fact  that 
my  sister — the  Sylvia  of  Sister  Songs — chanced  at  that 
moment  to  be  lying  ill  there,  led  him  to  consider  the 
institution  without  hostility,  and  the  next  day,  my 
father  having  previously  recommended  him  to  the  nuns, 
he  went  unreluctant  to  his  death-bed.  Consumption 
was  the  mortal  disease,  and  he  had  grown  grievously 
thin,  and  too  weak  to  be  allowed  much  less  than  his 
habitual  doses  of  laudanum.  Some  little  while  before 
the  hours  at  which  these  became  due,  the  tax  upon  his 
remaining  strength  was  very  heavy  ;  but  only  when  in 
acutest  need  of  the  one  medicine  that  could  keep  him  alive 
(as,  indeed,  it  had  done  over  a  long  course  of  years)  were 
the  last  days  distressing  for  him.  During  most  of  them 
(he  was  in  St.  John  and  St.  Elizabeth's  ten  days)  he  was 

349 


Last  Things 

content  with  his  surrounding,  and  knew  Sister  Michael, 
his  most  kind  nurse. 

His  reading  was  divided  between  his  prayer-book  and 
Mr.  W.  W.  Jacobs'  Many  Cargoes,  neither  of  which  at- 
tested his  realisation  of  the  end.  But  he  was  not  ignorant 
of  it.  When  I  last  saw  him  he  took  my  father's  hand 
and  kept  it  within  his  own,  chafing  and  patting  it  as  if  to 
make  a  last  farewell.  He  died  at  dawn  on  November  13, 
1907. 

But,  for  all  that  friends  were  at  hand,  the  nurse  tender, 
and  the  priest  punctual,  his  passing  was  solitary.  His 
bedside  was  not  one  at  which  watchers  share  comming- 
ling cold,  as  when  a  widow's  burning  fingers,  holding 
those  of  her  dead,  are  turned  to  inner  ice  ;  his  going 
not  as  a  child's,  which  chills  the  house.  The  fires 
quenched  were  his  own.  It  seemed  to  his  friends  as  if 
it  were  a  matter  personal  to  himself ;  while  their  sorrow 
for  their  own  loss  was  mixed  almost  with  satisfaction  at 
something  ended  in  his  favour,  as  if  at  last  he  had  had 
his  way  in  a  transaction  with  a  Second  Party,  who  might 
have  long  and  painfully  delayed  the  issue. 

Nothing  improvident  or  improper,  it  seemed  to  those 
at  hand,  had  happened  in  the  hospital  ward.  Such  were 
one's  feelings  beside  the  tall  window,  among  nuns  who 
smiled  happily  because  he  had  received  the  Sacraments. 
His  features,  when  I  went  to  make  a  drawing  of  him  in 
the  small  mortuary  that  stood  among  the  wintry  garden- 
trees,  were  entirely  peaceful,  so  that  I,  who  had  some- 
times known  them  otherwise,  fell  into  the  mood  of  the 
cheerful  lay-sister  with  the  keys,  who  said  :  "  I  hear  he 
had  a  very  good  death."  To  the  priest,  who  had  seen 
him  in  communion  with  the  Church  and  her  saints  at 
the  moment  which  may  be  accounted  the  most  solitary 
possible  to  the  heart  of  man,  no  thought  of  especial  lone- 
liness was  associated  with  his  death. 

He  was  too  magnanimous  to  take  one  to  his  dead 
heart.     Suffering    alone,    he    escaped    alone,    and    left 

350 


Death 

none  strictly  bound  on  his  account.  He  left  his  friends 
to  be  busy,  not  with  his  ashes,  but  his  works.  It  was  as 
if  the  winds  that  caught  and  checked  his  breath  were 
those  that  blew  his  fame  into  conspicuous  glows.  He 
was  laid  to  rest  in  St.  Mary's  Cemetery,  Kensal  Green. 
In  his  coffin,  W.  M.  records,  were  roses  from  Meredith's 
garden,  inscribed  with  Meredith's  testimony — "  A  true 
poet,  one  of  the  small  band,"  and  violets  went  to  the 
dead  poet's  breast  from  the  hand  of  my  mother  whose 
praises  he  had  divinely  sung. 

"  Devoted  friends  lament  him,"  wrote  W.  M.,  "  no 
less  for  himself  than  for  his  singing.  But  let  none  be 
named  the  benefactor  of  him  who  gave  to  all  more  than 
any  could  give  to  him.  He  made  all  men  his  debtors, 
leaving  to  those  who  loved  him  the  memory  of  his  per- 
sonality, and  to  English  poetry  an  imperishable  name." 


351 


Index 


Absent-mindedness,  Francis  Thomp- 
son's, 9,  26  n.,  31,  276 

Academy,  The,  71  n.,  329  ;  articles  by 
F.  T.  in,  42,  163-4,  255,  257,  259-64, 
267-70,  316,  321,  332-3;  poems  by 
F.  T.  in,  255,  259,  337  ;  F.  T.'s  con- 
nexion with,  245,  253-64,  334-5 

Accent,  176 

Acerbity,  F.  T.'s  assumed,  89 

Aeschylus,  58,  90 

"  After  her  Going,"  183 

"  After  Woman,  The,"  195,  228-9 

Aloofness,  F.  T.'s,  8,  24,  35-6,  279-80 

Alphonsus,  Father,  181 

"  Amelia  Applejohn,"  247 

American  Ecclesiastical  Review,  143 

"  Amphicypellon  "  (Sister-Songs),  105- 
106,  294 

Ann  (De  Quincey's),  63,  83 

Ann  (Francis  Thompson's),  63,  81-4, 
92 

Anger,  F.  T.'s  incapacity  for,  54, 
141-2 

Anselm,  Fr.  (now  Archbishop  of  Simla), 
174,  180-1,  183,  189-90;  letters  to 
F.  T.,  344-5 

"Anthem  of  Earth,  An,"  37,  47,  177, 
201,  241  ;  alluded  to,  157 

Aquinas,  St.  Thomas,  218 

Archer,  Mr.  William,  144,  152-3, 
337;  quoted,  241;  letter  to  F.  T. , 
242 

Arnold,  Matthew,  F.  T.  on,  170 

Arnold,  Sir  Edwin,  233 

Ashbourne,  Lord,  183 

Ashton-under-Lyne,  5,  39,  71 

Asquith,  Mr.,  160 

"  Assumpta  Maria,"  173-4 

Astrology,  330 

"  Astronomer,  A  Dead,"  124,  126 

Athenceum,  The,  poem  by  F.  T.  in, 
235  ;  reviews  of  F.  T.  in,  144-6, 
241  ;  F.  T.'s  connexion  with,  243, 
326,  336 

Augustine,  St.,  quoted,  147, 165  ;  F.  T. 
on,  172 

Austin,  Mr.  Alfred,  332 

Ave  Maria  (Notre  Dame,  Indiana), 
137  n. 


Ballantyne,  R.  M.,  16 

Barry,  Rev.  Canon,  171 

Beacock,  Mr.,  Concordance  to  F.  T., 
154,  165,  167 

Beardsley,  Aubrey,  323-4 

Bearne,  Fr.  David,  185 

Beauty,  female,  10,  12 

Bennett,  Mr.  Arnold,  149-50 

Berlioz,  55,  348 

Bernard,  St.,  172,  191,  288 

Beuno's,  St.,  College,  185 

Bible,  the,  its  diction,  158,  171;  sym- 
bolism in,  191,  194,  196;  F.  T.'s 
reading  of,  172-3 ;  Apocalypse, 
172-3;  Canticles,  223;  Ecclesiastes, 
173,  193,  238;  Genesis,  227;  Penta- 
teuch, 223;  the  Prophets,  196,  264; 
Psalms,  194,  196,  209  ;  St.  John,  189, 
225 

Blackburn,  Mrs.,  126,  143,  252 

Blackburn,    Vernon,    21,    95,     126-7, 

J38-9. 152 
Blackfriars,  64,  278 

Blake,  331 ;  quoted,  223  ;  F.  T.'s  read- 
ing of,  58,  90;  Mr.  E.   J.  Ellis  on, 

219 
Blunt,  Mr.  W.  Scawen,  85  n.,  137,  245, 

347-8  ;  quoted,  131  n.  ;  F.  T.  on,  256  ; 

F.  T.'s  reading  of,  165  i,.jju 

Bookman,  The,  review  of  New  Poems, 

241 ;     Mr.    Garvin's    article    in,    on 

F.  T. ,  167,  243 
Bootblack,  F.  T.  as  a,  65 
Booth,  Mr.  Bramwell,  107 
Booth,  "General,"  79-80,  106 
Bootmaker's  assistant,  F.  T.  as  a,  71-5 
Boys  and  boyhood, 17-19,  21 
Breviary,  the,  171-3,  182 
Bridges,  Mr.  Robert,  136 
"Brin,"  118 
British  Review,  240 
Broads,  the  Norfolk,  118,  173 
Brondesbury,  45,  274 
Bronte,  Charlotte,  76-7,  127,  328 
"  Broom-branch  at  Twilight,  A,"  304 
Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  quoted,  84,  95- 

6;  F.   T.'s  reading  of,  95,   165;  his 

diction,  47,  155-6 
Browning,  E.  B.,  124,  127 


353 


Index 


Browning,  R. ,  Browning  on  F.  T. , 
120-2,  124,137  n. ;  William  Sharp's 
Life  of,  reviewed  by  F.  T. ,  121,  124  ; 
his  obscurity,  146  ;  his  diction,  154-5  ; 
his  observation,  275 

Bryan,  Maggie,  230 

Bunyan, 225 

"  Bunyan  in  the  Light  of  Modern 
Criticism,"  92,  267 

Burns,  Robert,  F.  T.  compared  with, 
140  ;  F.  T.  on,  168,  263-4 

Burton's  Anatomy  of  Melancholy,  188 

Butler,  Samuel  (Hudibras),  196,  270 

"  By  Reason  of  thy  Law,"  174 

Campion,  152 

Cancelled  passages,  107-8 

Canon  Law  in  Her  Portiai  t,  174 

"  Captain  of  Song,  A,"  235 

Capuchins,  128,  140,  180-1 

Cardan,  196 

Cardinal    points,    symbolism    of   the, 

192-6 
Carlisle  Place,  108 
Carmen,  102 

"  Carmen  Genesis,"  285-6,  309-10 
Carmina  Mariana,  173 
Carroll,  Dr. ,  late  Bishop  of  Shrewsbury, 

24,  107  n.,  117,  144;  letters  to,  97, 

123 
Casartelli,  Dr.,  Bishop  of  Salford,  15 
Catholic  Encyclopaedia,  335 
Catholic  lVorld{N.Y.),  137  ft. 
Catholicism,  F.  T.  on,  59-60,  224 
"  Catholics  in  Darkest  England,"  106 
Cawein,  Mr.  Madison,  268-9 
Chambers,  Mr.  E.  K.,  154 
Chancery  Lane,  253-4 
Chapman,  175 

Charing  Cross,  61  ;  post  office,  86-8 
Charles  Borromeo,  St.,  208-9 
Chatterton,  61 
Chelsea,  4,  82 
Chesterfield,  Lord,  272 
Chesterton,    Mr.    G.     K.,     165,    208, 

3.31 

Child  set  in  the  midst  by  Modern  Poets, 

The,  123 

Child  who  will  never  grow  old,  The, 
250 

Children  and  Childhood.  F.  T.'s 
childhood,  5-14,  24,  98 ;  his  child- 
likeness,  247,  249 ;  his  ways  with 
children,  74,  104,  114-17,  119,  251 ; 
on  the  children  of  London,  79-82 

Chisholm,  Mr.  Hugh,  140 

Church,  the,  202,  226,  322 

Church  Court  (or  Passage),  Chancery 
Lane,  5,  68 

"  Clarendon"  Reading  Room,  68 

Clarke,  Fr.  R.  F.,  85,  193 

Clement,  St.,  222-3 


Cobbe,  Frances  Power,  260-1 

Cock,  Mr.  Albert,  201 

Coleridge,  F.  T.'s  early  reading  of,  io, 
96,  161-2,  241 ;  affinities  and  ana- 
logies with  F.  T.,3,  47.49.56,71  »., 
94-5.  163.  241.  32S-  340,  343-4  I  and 
opium,  53;  as  a  poet,  127,  163-4; 
quoted,  166,  179,  205 

"  Collecting  "  books,  62 

Collins,  87 

Colwyn  Bay,  12-13,  44 

Constable  &  Co.,  Messrs.,  277 

''  Contemplation,"  222 

Contemporary  Review,  136 

Conversation,  F.  T.'s,  47,  62,  in,  253, 
311-12,  314,  342,  349 

Cooper,  T.  Fenimore,  16 

Corbishly,  Monsignor,  26 

Corporal  Punishment,  19-20 

"Corymbus  for  Autumn,  A,"  137  n., 
167 

Courage,  F.  T.'s  lack  of  active,  55,  62 

Covent  Garden,  76-7,  91,  273,  278 

Cowley,  170 ;  F.  T.  compared  to,  146- 
7;  diction,  155;  F.  T.'s  reading  of, 
165-7;  quoted,  173 

Crashaw,  F.  T.  and,  144,  146-7,  164, 
166-7,  J79>  257,  267-8,  288 

Crawley,  112,  181,  189,  344-6 

Cricket,  13,  39-45,  326,  328 

Critic,  The  (N.Y.),  137,  240 

Cross,  the,  6,  95  n.,  193  n.,  211-13 

Crosskell,  Canon  Charles,  Procurator 
of  Ushaw,  26 

Crowley,  Mr.  Aleister,  268 

Cuthbert,  Fr.,  189 

Daily  Chronicle,  reviews  of  F.  T. ,  135, 

145,  170,  240,  241 ;   review  of  Mrs. 

Meynell,  149  ;  paragraph  by  A.  M., 

159 ;  odes  by  F.  T.  in,  321,  333 
Daily  Mail,  verse  by  F.  T.   in,  227  ; 

F.  T.'s  reading  of,  314-15,  328 
Daily  Neivs,  241 
"Daisy,"    104,    ri8,    123,    140,    t6o, 

167 
Daniel,  Samuel,  270 
Dante,  14,  87,  170,  172,  200 
Darwinism,  244 
"Daughter  of  Lebanon"   (De   Quin- 

cey's),  84,  164 
David,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  347 
Davidson,  John,  136,  140-1,  176,  311 
"  Dead  Cardinal  of  Westminster,  To 

the,"  107-8  (cancelled  stanzas),  129, 

167,  226 
de  Bary,  Mr.  Richard,  182 
Dedications  to  Poems  and  New  Poems, 

128,  236-7 
Denbigh,  Lady,  186 
Depression,  F.  T.'s  fits  of,  27,  47,  96, 

185 


354 


Index 


De  Quincey,  affinities  and  analogies 
with  F.  T.,  46-7,  50-2,  62-3,  76,  83- 
84.  95.  l68.  329,  343  •  F-  T.'s  reading 
of,  46-7,  50,  53-4,  q8,  164-5,  267-8; 
and  opium,  48-9,  51-3,95;  other- 
wise quoted,  133  n. 

Despairs  and  panics,  117-8,  316-7,  335 

De  Vere,  Aubrey,  269 

Diction,  F.  T. 's,  132-3,  148, 152-60,  193 

Dimbovitza,  The  Bard  of  the,  264 

Dolls,  9-10 

"  Domus  Tua,"  130,  148 

Donne,  148,  155,  165,  173-4,  212  »., 
213 

Doubleday,  Mr.  and  Mrs. ,  242,  247-8  ; 
letter  to  Mr.  Doubleday,  306  n. 

Douglas,  Lord  Alfred,  269 

Dowling,  Mr.  Richard,  267 

Dowson,  Ernest,  160,  323-4 

Drayton,  Michael,  154-5,  165,  270 

"Dread  of  Height,  The,"  220,  222, 
225 

"  Dream  Tryst,"  13-14,  92,  102,  124, 
167 

"  Dress"  (verses  in  Daily  Mail),  227 

Driffield,  Fr. ,  101 

Drummond  of  Hawthornden,  208 

Drury  Lane,  89 

Dryden,  101,  146,  155,  175,  307 

Dublin  Review,  94,  96-7,  100,  201 

Dumas,  259 

Early  verse,  27-30 

Ecclesiastical  Ballads,  169,  195  n. ,  283 

Eckhart,  Meister,  165 

Edgbaston,  248 

Edgware  Road,  65,  275,  287 

Edinburgh    Review,   150-1,    171,    185, 

241,  246 
Egoism,  the  poets',  308 
Egyptian  religion,  193-4,  196,  222-3 
Elgin  Avenue,  273-4,  280,  339 
Eliot,  George,  127 
Elision,  132 

Elizabethans,  the,  177,  256,  270,  334 
Embankment,  Thames,  24,  278 
Emerson,  321,  342 
Encyclopaedia,  an,  56 
Enlistment,  56-7,  163 
"  Erotic"  poet(!),  F.  T.  as  an,  3,  I4«., 

124 
Esotericism,  191-6,  223-4 
Eternal  punishment,  226 
Etymologies,  159-60 
Eve,  the  New,  194-5 
Exercise-books,  32,  34,  104 
Extinct  animals,  37,  157 

Failures,  F.   T.'s  successive,   32-4, 

S4-«.  57 
Fairy  Tales,  14,  103,  116 
"  Fallen  Yew,  The,"  108,  109,  132 


Fancy  and  imagination,  191 

Feilding,  Everard,  186-8 

Fiona  Macleod,  260 

Fisher,  Mr.,  334 

Fletcher,  Fr.  Philip,  124 

"  Form  and  Formalism,"  215 

Formby,  Mr.,  127 

Fortnightly  Review,  126,  139,  146-9 

Francis,  St. ,  of  Assisi,  60,  quoted,  181-2, 

283,  295  ;  F.  T.  on,  181,  295-6 
Francis,  St.,  of  Sales,  127,  270 
Franciscan  Days  of  Vigil  (De  Bary's) 

quoted,  182 
Franciscans,  the,  won.,  180-3 
Freemasonry,  193  n. 
Friston,  Suffolk,  118-19,  340-1 
"From  the  night  of  Forebeing,"  166, 

184 
F.  S.,25 

Gale,  Mr.  Norman,  136,  140,  249 
Gardner,  Mr.  Edmund,  211  n. 
Garvin,  Mr.  James,  122 
Garvin,   Mr.   Louis,    122-3,    145,    167, 

243 ;  letters  to  F.  T. ,  332-3 
Gentleness,  F.  T.'s  extreme,  20,  119 
Gerrard,  Fr.  T.  J.,  348 
Ghosh,  Mr.  S.  K.,  211-12  «.,  317 
Ghost,  a,  186-7,  188 
Gibbon, 26 

Gillow,  Canon  Henry,  15,  26 
Glasgow,  55-6 
Gloom,  133,  227 
Golden  Halfpennies,  the,  67 
Gosse,  Mr.  Edmund,  152 
Granville  Place,  45,  314 
Greco,  El,  327 
Guardian,  The,  240 
Guildhall  Library,  London,  63,  91 

Hardy,  Mr.  Thomas,  265-6,  268 
Harrow  Road,  190,  281 
Head,  Dr.  Henry,  186-8 
Hawthorne,  quoted,  24,  293 
Hayes,  Mr.  Alfred,  248-9 
Health  and  Holiness,  288-90,  348 
"  Heard  on  the  Mountain,"  175,  306 
Hearn,  Lafcadio,  15,  20,  21-3 
Henley,  W.  E. ,  F.  T.  on,  136,  177-8, 

256,  263,  266-7  I  on  F-  T.,  149,  262- 

4  ;  meeting  with,  264-6 
Herbert,  George,  166-7,  s88.  3°5 
"  Her  Portrait,"  127,  141,  174 
Hind,  C.  Lewis,  253,  263-5,  321  •  letters 

from  F.  T.  to,  256-64  ;  letter  to  F.  T. 

from,  264 
Hinkson,  Mrs.,  see  Tynan,  Katharine 
Holyhead,  13 
Homer,  74,  105 
Hospital,  F.  T.  in,  94,  349-50 
Hospital  of  St.  John  and  St.  Elizabeth, 

349-5° 


355 


Index 


"Hound  of   Heaven,  The,"   84,   122, 

137  n.,  144,  164-5,  176,  205-6,  2H, 

300,  319 
Housman,  Mr.  Laurence,  135 
Hiigel,  Baron  von,  201 
Hugo,  Victor,  98,  175,  306  n. 
Humility,  F.  T.'s,  187,  237 
Humorous    verse,    13,    27-8, 

331 
Hunt,  Leigh,  191 
Huxley,  74 
Hyde,  Mr.  William,   277,  281 

from  F.  T.  to,  277 


m-i: 


letter 


"  Idylls  of  the  King,"  F.  T.  on  the, 

101 
Ignatius  Loyola,  Life  of  St.,  336 
Illness  and  ill-health,  46,  94,  104,  125, 

129,  257,  260,  272-3,  339,  349 
Imagery,    F.    T.'s,    13,   91,    187,    207, 

216 ;    F.   T.    on   his    own   imagery, 

97-8,  158  ;  F.  T.'s  imagery  criticised, 

148;    A.    M.    on    imagery,   216-17; 

F.  T.   on   imagery  in  general,   151, 

215-17,  219 
Imagination,  191,  215-16 
Imperial  and  Colonial  Magazine,  335 
Indifference  to  comfort,  F.  T.'s,  287, 

288 
Individualism,  F.  T.  on,  108-10 
Individuality,  108 
Inexpertness,  F.  T.'s,  8,  75 
Inobservance,  F.  T.'s,  274,  276 
Irish  Monthly,  185 

Jacobs,  Mr.  W.  W. ,  266,  271,  350 

Jacopone  da  Todi,  309,  323 

James,  Henry,  329 

Jerome,  St.,  171 

Joan  of  Arc,  199 

John,  St.,  225.     See  also  Bible 

John,  St.,  and  St.  Elizabeth,  Hospital 

of,  283,  349-5° 
John  of  the  Cross,  St.,  146,  224 
Johnson,  Dr.,  325  ;  quoted,  348 
Johnson,  Lionel, 85,  323;  quoted,  152, 

282 
Josephus,  74 

Joubert,  quoted,  200  (222) 
Journalism,  93,  in,  316,  334 
"  Judgment  in   Heaven,  A,"  59,  136, 

137,  144,  167 


Keats,  92,  150,  152,  164,  193,  243, 

307,  318 
Kelsall,  an  actor,  64 
Kempis,  Thomas  a,  225-6,  243,  283 
Kensall  Green,  St.   Mary's  Cemetery, 

351 
Kensington  Gardens,  104,  114-1^ 

Kent,  W.  H.,  174 

Kent's  Bank,  near  Alverstone,  13 


Kilburn,  268,  274 

King,  Miss  Katharine  Douglas,  250-1 ; 

letters  to  F.  T.  250-1 
King,  Mrs.  Hamilton,  letters  to  F.  T. , 

132,  250 
Kingsford,  Anna,  174 
Kipling,  Mr.  Rudyard,  126,  170,  175, 

262,  268,  270 

L. ,  Miss,  60 

Laburnum,  29,  273 

Ladysmith,  siege  of,  9 
!    Lamb,  Charles,  20,  61,  321 
i    Landor,  260 

Landladies,  274,  279-80,  317 

Lane,    Mr.    John,    129,    135-6,     145, 
184 

Lang,  Mr.  Andrew,  136-7,  139,  165 

Latin,  171 

Latinisms,  33,  155-7 

Laureateship,  the,  233-4 

Lecky,  Mr.  Walter,  137 

Le  Gallienne,  Mr.  Richard,  135-6,  141, 

*45.  J49 
Leo  XIII.,  283 
Leonard  Square,  250 
Leslie,  Mr.  Shane,  91 
Libraries,  F.  T.  as  a  haunter  of,  10, 

16,  25,  27,  37,  47,  63 
Light,  190,  238  n. 

Light-heartedness,  F.  T.'s,  27-8,  77 
Lilly,  W.  S. ,  Century  of  Revolution , 

124 
"  Lily  of  the  King,  The,"  283 
Literary  World,  240 
Liturgy,  the,  30-31,  33,  156,  171-4 
Lockyer,  Sir  Norman,  238 
Lodge,  160 
Lodging-houses,  64-5 
"Lodi,  Storming  of  the  Bridge,  at," 

26 
Log-rolling,  138,  140-143 
London,  F.  T.  on,  77,  79,  277-9  >  F.  T. 

in,  46,  54,  61-93,  i°4.  236 
Lord's,  44-5 
Love  and  love-affairs,  11,  14,  38,  73-4, 

230-2 
"  Love  declared,"  230 
Lower-worldliness,  F.  T.'s,  64-7 
Lucas,  Mr.  E.  V.,  41,  45,  253,  264 
Lucas,  Winifrid  (Mrs.  H.  Le  Bailly), 

250 
Lytton-Bulwer,  74,  157,  265 
Lytton,  Hon.  Neville,  337 


356 


Macaulay,  10,  26,  169,  260 

Maeterlinck,  198-9 

"  Magic,  Varia  on,"  188,  193 

"  Making  of  Viola,  The,"  59,  93,  122, 

158.  179 
"  Man    Proposes,   Woman  Disposes," 
227,  337  n. 


Index 


Manchester,  F.  T.  in,  35-6,  46-9,  51, 

55-  58>  61,  75-  84.  274 
Manchester   Guardian,  145,  332 
Mangan,  168 
Mann,  Rev.  Horace  K.,  15-16,  19,  24, 

26 
Manning,  Cardinal,  79,  85  n. ,  107-8, 

in,  290 
Marianus,  Fr. ,  180 
Maries,  Mrs.,  274,  318 
Marlowe,  168,  244 
Marryat,  Captain,  16 
Martin,  Miss  Agnes,  3,  4 
"  Martyrs,  To  the  English,"  275 
Marvell,  165 
Mary,  the  Blessed  Virgin,  46  «. ,  172-3, 

227,  228 
Mary  Ignatius,   Sister  (F.   T.'s  aunt), 

Mary  of  St.  J.  F.  de  Chantal,  Sister 
(F.  T.'s  aunt),  5 

Mary  of  the  Angels,  St.,  Bayswater, 
281,  341 

Mary's,  St.,  Cemetery,  Kensal  Green, 
351 

Massingham,  Mr.  H.  W.,  letters  to 
F.  T. ,  332,  336-7 

May,  Mr.  (F.  T.'s  cousin),  46 

M 'Master,  Mr.,  70-76 

Medal,  a  consecrated,  13,  73 

Medical  student,  F.  T.  as,  35-56 

Melpomene,  the  Vatican,  37-8 

Mercure  de  France,  319 

Meredith,  George,  F.  T.'s  reading  of, 
150,  165,  266;  on  A.  M.,  233; 
F.  T.'s  meetings  with,  245-7;  on 
F,  T.,  246-7,  351 

Merry  England,  85,  no,  113,  121,  193, 
250;  poems  by  F.  T.  in,  87-8,  92, 
95,  102,  107,  120,  122,  124,  126, 
130-31,  137  n.,  138,  304;  prose 
articles  by  F.  T.  in,  85,  92,  96,  106, 
179 

Metaphor  and  simile,  151 

Metre,  151,  158-9.  175-9-  220 

Meynell,  Alice,  on  F.  T. ,  94-5,  107, 
126,  155,  157,  179,  216-17,  226-7, 
320,331;  F,  T.  on,  86,  113,  126-8, 
133  n.,  136,  146,  148-9,  216  ;  other 
references,  95,  120-1,  137,  183,  194, 
224,  234,  238,  245-7,  250,  256,  336 ; 
letters  from  F.  T.  to,  130-1,  133  «., 
159,  177,  183,  188-9,  226,  297,  312, 
313  ;  letters  to  F.  T.,  129,  139,  158 

Meynell  family,    F.  T.   and  the,  114, 

116-7,  160,  184,  247,  268 
Meynell,  Mr.  Wilfrid,  F.  T.  and,  87, 
89-92,  95,  97,  107,  hi,  137.  HZ< 
194,  247,  250,  262,  284  n.,  303,  317, 
327,  336,  349;  F.  T.  on,  86;  on 
F,  T.,  98-100,  123,  124-5,  32°~2; 
letters  from   F,  T.  to,  85,  88,    100, 


103-4,  no;;.,  114-17.  i29.  I35.  I45_ 
6,  180,  183,  234-5,  238,  242,  250, 
316-18,  335,  337,  339;  other  letters 

tO,  58,  IO7  «.,  I20,  I4O,  183,  186-8, 
247-8 

Michael,  Sister,  350 

Mills,  Mr.  J.  Saxon,  39,  60 

Milton,  140,  155-6,  159,  196,  281,  307 

Miracles,  67,  348 

"Mistress  of  Vision,  The,"  165,  222, 

237,  240-1 
Monica  Mary  (Saleeby,  nee  Meynell), 

113-14,   118-19,  148,  340-1;    letters 

to,  340-1 
"  Monica  thought  dying,  To,"  132,  145 
"  Monica,  To,  after  nine  years,"  119 
Moore,  Mr.  Sturge,  260,  315 
Morning  Post,  152,  240 
Morris,  Sir  Lewis,  190 
Moulton,  Mrs.  Louise  Chandler,  252 
Murderer,  a  ("  D.  I."),  64,  78 
Music,  F.  T.'s  love  of,  55 
Mysticism,  true  and  false,  148,  198-9 

221,  223,  237 
Mythologies,  196 

Napoleon  Judges,  337  n. 

Nares'  Glossary,  154 

"  Narrow  Vessel,  A,"  229-32 

Nation,  The,  155,  157,  179,  216,  320, 
336 

National  Observer,  138 

National  Review,  233 

Nature,  F.  T.  on,  30,  131-2,  205-7, 
211 

Nerses,  St.,  the  Armenian,  173-4 

New  Brighton,  13 

New  Poems  (1897),  187  ;  its  reception, 
136,  150,  239-43,  253,  308;  a  can- 
celled preface,  158,  175-6,  185,  220, 
237-8;  mysticism  in,  201,  214,  238; 
F.  T.  on,  236,  238-9,  301,  306; 
dedication,  236-7 

New  York  Post,  137 

Newbolt,  Mr.  Henry,  139,  269 

Newcastle  Daily  Chronicle,  122 

"  Nocturn,"  186 

Notebooks,  F.  T.'s,  27,  227  ;  quoted,  8, 
12,  13,  18,  64,  78,  142,  175,  178,  188, 
208,  228,  276-7,  283,  303-4 

Nowlan,  Fr. ,  26  n. 

Noyes,  Mr.  Alfred,  269 

Nuns  of  the  Cross  and  Passion,  6 

Nyren,  43 

Odes,  occasional,  321,  332-4 

Ode  to  the  Setting  Sun,  95,  95  n.,  124- 

5,  127,  137  n.,  176,  201,  211-12 
"Old  Fogey,  An,"  (Andrew  Lang,  soi- 

disant),  136 
Old  Trafford  cricket-ground,  39,  43 
Opera,  the,  46 


357 


Ind 


Opium,  F.  T.  and,  3,  46,  48-9,  51-3, 
56-8,  63,  83,  87,  94-6,  104,  123,  163, 
254-5,  321 

"Orient  Ode,"  192,  201,  201  ??.,  210, 
222,  238 

Origen,  223 

Orpen,  Mr,  327 

Ostade,  254 

O'Sullivan,  Mr.  Vincent,  136,  252 

Outcasts,  63-4,  74,  81-4 

Owens  College,  Manchester,  35-6,  46, 

54 
Oxford  Street,  61,  70,  274 

Paddington,  65,  274 

Paganism,  125,  205,  228 

"  Paganism,  Old  and  New,"  85-7,  92, 
125,  268 

Pain,  69,  129,  294,  295 

Palace  Court,  Kensington,  F.  T.  at, 
24,  68,  104,  117,  123,  271,  274, 
284  n. 

Pall  Mall  Gazette,  138,  146,  241 

Pan,  29-30,  124 

Pantasaph,  F.  T.  at,  24,  128-9,  131-2, 
143-6,  148-9,  177,  180-97,  230,  233- 
236,  238-9 

Pantheism,  205 

Panton  Street,  62,  71,  74-5 

"Passion  of  Mary,  The,"  46  ».,  87,  88, 
92, 124 

Passion,  The,  6,  288 

Parodies,  154,  331 

Patmore,  Coventry,  130,  143,  275,  282, 
328;  F.  T.'s  friendship  with,  146, 
148-9,  189-90,  224,  233-6,  250,  312; 
F.  T.'s  affinities  with,  144-5,  169,  174, 
192-3,  220-1,  223,  267;  "irregular" 
metre  of,  176-8,  193,  220;  quoted, 
83-4,  I39i  146-8,  164,  190-1,  198,200, 
201,  209,  220,  222,  266,  306  n.,  312, 
317  ;  The  Poetry  of  Pathos  and  De- 
light, 234  ;  Religio  Poeta:,  189, 191-2  ; 
Rod,  Root  a?id  Flower,  149,  192,  201, 

220,  227;  translation  of  St.  Bernard, 
191  ;  The  Unknow?i  Eros,  181,  191, 
222,  238;  letters  to,  191-3,  195,  233, 
236,  238;  letters  from,  149,  194,  197, 

221,  233 
Patmore,  Henry,  21 
Paul,  St.,  220,  223 

Perry,  Fr.  Stephen,  124,  126 
Phillips,  Fr.  G.  E.,  16 
Phillips,  Mr.  Stephen,  175 
Pickpocket  Hall,  187 
Pico  della  Mirandola,  204 
Pile,  Mr.,  274-5 
Plagiarism,  168 
Plevna,  siege  of,  9 
Poe,  178 

Poems   (1893),    122, 
170,  238,  243,  341 


129.   135-48,    158, 


358 


ex 

"Poet  breaking  Silence,  To  a,"  126, 

133 
"  Poets  as  Prose  Writers,"  255,  316 
Politics,  335,  339 
Pope,  229,  272 
"Poppy,  The,"  118,  341 
Portiuncula,  the,  185 
Poverty,   fair  and  foul,  77-8  n.,  181, 

284-5 
Prayer,  73,  84,  104,  280,  286,  287  n. 
Premonstratensians,  95 
Preston,  1,  5 
Priesthood,  F.  T.    and  the,    5,   31-2, 

33,  73 
Prison,  64,  258 
Probyn,  Miss  May,  85,  116 
Prose,  F.  T.'s,  97-8,  135,  149, 177,  206, 

267,  310,  312 
Puns,  13,  326] 

Quantity,  176 

Quiller-Couch,  Sir  A.  T.,  153,  241 

Rabelais,  64 

Railton,  Sergeant,  19 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  48,  156,  256 

Ranjitsinjhi,  Prince,  42 

Realm,  The,  141,  146 

Reformation,  the,  12 

Refuges,  65 

Religion,  30,   31,  33,   34. 

licism,  and  Mysticism 
Rendall,  Mr.  Vernon,  letters  to  F.  T., 

336 
"  Renegade  Poet  on  the  Poet,  A,"  302 

Reserve,  F.  T.'s,  7,  18,  32,  35,  74,  90, 

297 
"Retrospect"  ("Sight  and  Insight'), 

184,  214 
Review  of  Reviews,  106 
Reviews  byF.  T. ,  121,  124,  156-7,  168, 

171.  x75>  253"5-  26°.  s69 
"  Rhodes,  Cecil,  Ode  on,"  255-6,  331; 
Rhyl,  185 

Richardson,  Fr. ,  46  n. 
Richardson,      Mrs.       Margaret,      ne'e 

Thompson  (the  poet's  sister),  1,  128, 

34r 
Roger  Bacon  Society,  The,  181,  183 
Rook,  Mr.  Clarence,  253 
Rossetti,  Christina,  209,  224 
Rossetti,  D.  G. ,  quoted,  65  n.,  82,  87  ; 

F.  T.'s  reading  of,  161, 165,  268 ;  other 

references,    127,  136,   154,  156,   164, 

224,  239,  318 
Rothschild,  67-8 
Rowton  House  Rhymes,  93 
Ruskin,  127 

S..F..25 

St.  Beuno's  College,  185 

St.  James's  Gazette,  135,  140,  145,  170 


See  Catho- 


Ind 


ex 


St.  John's  Wood,  45 

Saturday  Review,  146,  154,  233,  239 

Salle,  Blessed  J.  B.  de  la,  80 

"  Saul,"  an  unfinished  drama,  338 

Scholarship,  F.  T.'s,  26  n. ,  27,  35 

Science,  36,  196,  237-8 

Scots  Observer,  126,  262 

Scott,  10,  11 

Sea,  the,  12-13 

Seaman,  Mr.  Owen,  269 

Seeley's  (Mr.  H.  C),  Dragons  of  the 
Air,  157 

Selected  Poems  (1908),  247 

Self-appraisements,  F.  T.'s,  98,  131, 
136,  158,  187,  306 

Self-revelation  in  F.  T.'s  poetry,  103, 
148 

Selous,  F.  C. ,  illustrations  to  Shake- 
speare, 11,  38 

Seneca,  300 

"  Sere  of  the  Leaf,  The,"  102-3,  302 

Serendipity  Shop,  the,  286,  329 

Set-worship,  194,  196 

Seventeenth  Century,  165 

Shakespeare,  271 ;  F.  T.'s  early  reading 
of,  6,  10-12,  38;  his  metre,  177  ;  his 
diction,  154-5  ;  quotations  from,  or 
other  allusions  to,  by  F.  T.,  85, 
1 12-13, 117,  133,  175,  196,  238  ;  F.  T. 
compared  with,  138,  143,  150,  168, 
244 

Sharp,  William,  121,  124 

"  She,  the  unknown,"  73,  84 

Sheehan,  Canon  Patrick,  143 

Sheffield  Daily  Telegraph,  240 

Shelley,  F.  T's  reading  of,  87,  92,  96, 
161,  164;  F.  T.  on,  206,  260; 
Essay  on,  96-100  ;  Essay  on  Shelley, 
quoted,  5-6,  17-18,  98,  217,  219; 
F.T.'s  "  Shelley  "  poem,  126, 128  ;  his 
"Shelley"  selection,  100  n. ;  F.  T. 
compared  with,  143,  150,  165,  167, 
243,  262 

Shelters,  65 

Shore,  Mr.  W.  Teignmouth,  335 

Shore,  Miss,  261 

Shorter,  Mrs.  Dora  Sigerson,  269 

"  Sight  and  Insight,"  184,  198 

Silence  ("my  familiar"),  7,  35,  58, 
297 

Simile  and  metaphor,  151 

Simplicity,  F.  T.'s  personal,  185,  187 

"  Sir  Francis,"  119 

Sister  Songs,  its  writing,  104-6,  152  ; 
its  reception,  136,  141,  145,  154,  243- 
244  ;  Meredith's  epithet,  247  ;  Wilde's 
appreciation,  252;  F.  T.'s  feeling 
for  it,  304  ;  its  actuality,  273  ;  auto- 
biographical, 81,  148,  168 

Skating,  114 

Smithfield  Market,  117 

Snead-Cox,  Mr.  J.  G.,  85,  120 


Snowdon,  185 

Socialism,  no  ;/. 

Socrates,  223 

Solomon,  Simeon,  323 

"Song  of  the  Hours,"  95  ;/.,  125 

Sonnets,  73,  126 

South  African  War,  9 

South  Kensington  Museum,  105 

Southampton  Row,  71,  74 

Southwater,  159,  349 

Southwell,  167 

Speaker,  The,  140,  153,  240,  241 

Spenser,  155,  163 

Stalybridge,  39,  144 

Standard  Book  of  British  Poetry,  -ja, 

Star,  The,  145 

Stead,  W.  T.,  106-7 

Stephanon,  Lamente  forre,  28-9 

Stevenson,  R.  L.,  165,  170,  297,  302 

Storrington,  95-6,  in 

Strand,  the,  24,  71  «.,  163,  278 

Suckling,  165 

Sun,    the,    and    sun-worship,  210-12, 

229,  238,  272-3 
Sunrises  and  Sunsets,  131,  161,  290 
Sussex,  346 

Sutherland,  the  Duchess  of,  252 
Swedenborg,  206-7,  271 
Swinburne,  F.  T's  reading  of,  97,  265, 

268  ;  F.  T.  on,  126,  178-9,  266 
"Sylvia,"  8,  148,  151,  349 
Symons,  Arthur,  144-6,  198-9,  269 
Symbolism,  193-6,  211,  215,  218 

Tablet,  The,  99,  125,  126,  137  «.,  138 

"Tancred,  Francis"  (pseudonym  of 
F.  T.),  106 

Tate,  Dr.,  President  of  Ushaw,  26,  32 

Taylor,  Jeremy,  156 

Tennyson,  101,  120,  179  n.,  230,  260 

Terence,  299 

Texts  as  stimulants,  32,  68,  325-6 
;   Thames  Embankment,  24,  64,  192,  278 

Theresa,  St.,  146 

Thomas  a  Kempis,  225-6,  243,  283 

Thomas,  Mr.  Edward,  198 

Thomas  of  Celano,  181 

Thompson,  Dr.  Charles  (F.  T.'s  father), 
1,  2,  4,  36,  54-60,  71,  107  «.,  127, 
144,  185-6 

Thompson,  Edward  Healy  (F.  T.'s 
uncle),  2,  3,  14;/.,  46//.,  58-9,  61, 
68,  85  /;..  124 

Thompson  family,  the,  1-5 

Thompson,  Francis  Joseph,  birth, 
pedigree,  parentage,  1-4  ;  his  pater- 
nal uncles,  2,3;  other  relatives,  4, 
5  ;  childhood,  6  seq.  ;  home-life,  7- 
14.  35.  54-5-  57-6o,  74-5;  early 
reading,  6,  10-12  ;  at  the  seaside,  12, 
13;  cricket,  13,  39-45;  at  Ushaw, 
15-21,  24-32  ;  intention  of  the  priest- 


359 


Index 


hood  abandoned,  32-4;  a  medical 
student  at  Owens  College,  Man- 
chester, 35-46 ;  visits  to  London 
(1879  and  1882),  46,  54;  illness,  46; 
reading  de  Quincey,  46;  taking 
opium,  48-53,  56 ;  fails  in  his  exams. , 
54-6 ;  love  of  music,  55 ;  enlists, 
56-7  ;  flight  from  home,  57,  to  Man- 
chester, 58,  to  London,  58,  61 ;  odd 
jobs,  62-3;  an  outcast,  63-4;  lodg- 
ing-houses and  refuges,  64-5  ;  pieces 
of  good-luck,  67-8;  roofless  nights, 
69-70 ;  with  Mr.  McMaster  (the 
bootmaker),  70-75;  a  Christmas  at 
home,  74-5  ;  "in  darkest  London," 
76-80;  his  "brave,  sad,  lovingest, 
tender  thing,"  81-4,  92;  a  meeting 
with  the  editor  of  Merry  England, 
8S_90;  the  Meynell  household,  90-2  ; 
contributes  to  Merry  England,  92, 
120-6 ;  sent  to  a  private  hospital, 
94  ;  renunciation  of  opium,  94-5  ;  at 
Storrington,  95  ;  writing  poetry,  95 ; 
the  essay  on  Shelley,  96-100  ;  return 
to  London,  104 ;  "  The  Hound  of 
Heaven"  and  "Sister  Songs,"  104; 
article  on  General  Booth's  In  Darkest 
England,  106-7 ;  interview  with  Car- 
dinal Manning,  107-8  ;  journalism, 
111-12,  117,  253-70;  visits  to  Craw- 
ley, 112-13,  344-6;  in  Kensington 
Gardens,  1 14-15;  at  Friston,  in 
Suffolk,  118-19;  at  Pantasaph,  128- 
33;  140,  143-48,  177,  180-97,  230- 
39;  Poems  (1893),  128-48;  Sister 
Songs  (1895),  141,  145,  149-50; 
friendship  with  Coventry  Patmore, 
I39.  146-9.  189-97.  220-4,  233-4 ; 
his  critics,  152-61 ;  his  congeners, 
161-70,  174  ;  his  father's  death,  185- 
186 ;  his  mysticism,  191-232 ;  his 
attitude  to  Nature,  205-8  ;  his  re- 
ligion, 224-7;  h's  attitude  to  women, 
227-32 ;  a  love-affair,  230 ;  death  of 
Patmore,  234-7;  New  Poems,  198, 
201,  203,  236-43  ;  return  to  London, 
245  ;  meeting  with  Meredith,  245-7  ; 
other  friends,  247-52  ;  writes  for  The 
Academy,  253-70,  334-6 ;  criticisms 
on  and  meeting  with  W.  E.  Henley, 
262-7  !  his  catholic  appreciation  of 
modern  literature,  265-6,  268-9  ;  but 
preference  for  the  older  writers,  270- 
271;  as  a  Londoner,  272-81,  284, 
288;  his  poverty,  284-7;  hisloneliness, 
291;  bereft  of  song,  301-4,  306-7  ;  was 
he  happy  or  unhappy?  304-5,  329- 
33  ;  his  personal  appearance,  327-8  ; 
writes  for  The  Athenteum,  336;  a 
return  to  opium,  342  ;  visits  to  Sussex, 
344-49;  returns  to  London,  and 
goes  into  hospital,  349  ;  death,  350 


36O 


Thompson,  Francis  Joseph,  letters 
from,  to  Mother  Austin  (his  sister 
Mary),  333  ;  to  Dr.  Carroll,  97,  123; 
to  Mr.  Doubleday,  306  n.  ;  to  Mr. 
C.  L.  Hind,  256-61 ;  to  Mr.  William 
Hyde,  277 ;  to  Mrs.  Meynell,  130, 
132-3.  159.  *77,  183,  188-9,  226, 
297,  312-13;  to  Everard  Mevnell, 
44.  159.  328-31,  345;  to  Wilfrid 
Meynell,  85,  88,  100,  103-5,  "°  «•• 
112,  114-17,  129,  135,  145,  180, 
J83.  234-5,  238,  242,  250,  316-18, 
334-5.  337-8  ;  to  Coventry  Patmore, 
x9i-3.  195.  233-4,  236,  238 ;  to 
Mrs.  Patmore,  234  ;  to  Mrs.  Saleeby 
(ne'e  Monica  Meynell),  340-341  ;  to 
Miss  Agnes  Tobin,  252 

Letters  to,  from  Father  Anselm, 

344-5 ;  from  Mr.  W.  Archer,  242 ; 
from  Mother  Austen  (his  sister  Mary): 
334;  from  Mr.  J.  L.  Garvin,  332-3; 
from  Mr.  C.  L.  Hind,  264 ;  from 
Mrs.  Hamilton  King,  132,  250  ;  from 
Miss  K.  Douglas  King,  250 ;  from 
Mr.  H.  W.  Massingham,  332,  336; 
from  Mrs.  Meynell,  129,  158 ;  from 
Coventry  Patmore,  149,  194,  197, 
221,  233  ;  from  Mrs.  Patmore,  237  ; 
from  Mr.  Vernon  Rendall,  336  ;  from 
W.  T.  Stead,  106 ;  from  Mrs.  Tynan 
Hinkson,  102 

Thompson,  Helen  '(F.  T.'s  sister), 
1  n. 

Thompson,  John  Costall  (F.  T.'s 
uncle),  2,  3 

Thompson,  Margaret  (F.  T.'s  sister),  1, 
128 

Thompson,  Mary  (F.  T.'s  sister), 
"  Mother  Austin,"  a  nun,  1  n.t  7,  8, 
12-14,  39-4o,  57,  59,  75,  127,  186, 
287  «.,  341;  letter  to,  333;  letter 
from,  334 

Thompson,  Mary  Turner,  nee  Morton 
(F.  T.'s  mother),  1,  4,  7,  10,  46/48-9 

Thorp,  Mr.,  259 

Times,  The,  240,  319,  320 

Timidity,  F.  T.'s,  13,  15,  32,  265 

"To   my   Godchild,"    123,    137,    162, 

273 
Tobin,  Miss  Agnes,  252 
Tolstoy,  109 
"  Tommy,"  15,  19,  27 
"  Tom  o'  Bedlam,"  65,  207 
Toys,  F.  T.'s,  8,  98 
Traherne,  74,  285,  288 
Traill,  Mr.  H.  D. ,  144-5,  x49 
Tregunter  Road,  Fulham,  46 
"  Twopenny  Damn,  The,"  139 
Tyburn,  275 
Tynan,     Katharine    (Mrs.    Hinkson), 

85^.,  102, 122,  i37«.,209,3O2;  letters 

to  F.  T. ,  102 


Index 


"  Ultima,"  306 

University  Press,   Notre  Dame,  Ind., 

318-9 
Unpublished   fragments   of  verse,  65, 

81,    161,    188,    208,    213,    236,    270, 

276-7,  280,  291-3,  295 
Unpublished  poems,  73-4,  77-8.  292-3, 

296-7 
Unpunctuality,  F.  T.'s,  9,  33,  72,  257, 

264-5,  327 
Unworldliness,  F.  T.  s,  5,  249,  287-8 
Ushaw,  F.  T.  at,  14,  34,  127 

Vaughan,  Henry,  198,  209,  288 
Vaughan,  Cardinal,  33,  99,  283 
Verlaine,  320,  322 
"  Veteran     of    Heaven,     The,"     169, 

195  n. 
Vienna  Cafe,  The,  280,  303 
Vulgate,  the,  171 

Wales,  F.  T.  in,  24,  128-32,  143-9, 

177-97,  230-9 
War,  fears  of  a  general,  193  n.,  339-4° 
Wardour  Street,  70 
Watson,  Mr.  William,  136,  145,  259 
Watts,  Mr.  Augustine,  21 
Watts-Dunton,  Mr.  Theodore,  165 


Waugh,  Mr.  Arthur,  258 
Wetkly  Register,    The,   Hi,   113,    124, 

127,  135,  137 
Weekly  Sun,  141 
Wells,  Mr.  H.  G.,  258 
Westbourne  Grove,  266,  284,  286 
"  Westminster  Drolleries,"  64 
Westminster  Gazette,  137,  154 
Whiteing,  Mr.  Richard,  112,  241 
Whiteside,   Dr.,  Archbishop  of  Liver- 
pool, 27 
Whitten,  Mr.  Wilfred,  71  n.,  257,  337; 
his  reminiscences  of  F.   T. ,  253-4, 
280-1,  303,  307 
Wilde,  Oscar,  127,  252 
Wilkinson,  Fr.  Adam,  20,  24 
Winefride's  Well,  St.,  185 
Wiseman,  Cardinal,  23,  99,  100 
Woman,  F.  T.  on,  227-9,  23l 
Woman  on  F.  T.,  149 
Wordsworth,   quoted,   311 ;   quoted  by 
F.    T. ,   87,    159;    points  of  contact 
withF.  T.,  160,  167,  183,  325  ;  points 
of  opposition,  205-6;  F.  T.'s  article 
on,  260 
Wormwood  Scrubbs,  44 
Wyndham,    Mr.    George,     100,    160. 
256 


Printed  by  Ballantvne,  Hanson  &  Co. 
at  Paul's  Work,  Edinburgh 


-c 


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